Employment and unemployment

Emploment statistics count and describe people with paid jobs though varying definitions of employment and unemployment in the Pacific make it difficult to analyse and compare labour market data.

In general, unemployment statistics count and describe people who don't have a paid job but could be working. An unemployed person is defined as someone who:

• is of working age
• has no paid job
• is available for work
• has looked for work in the last x number of weeks (x varies between countries).