I have a school debate project about the great depression in Canada, and I came across a puzzling statistic. (The source is one that teachers tell us to use all the time) It says "30 per cent of the labour force was out of work." but the unemployment rate at the time was 19%. How is this possible?
It's hard to say for sure without the source, but it sounds like they're using different definitions. Specifically you have to differentiate between the potential labour force, which is everybody in a certain age range, and the actual labour force, which is everybody who actually wants to work, e.g excluding housewives and such.
The unemployment rate was 19.3% at the peak of the recession according to more recent Canadian government estimates (they didn't calculate the unemployment rate at the time), as per StatCan (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-001-x/1992003/87-eng.pdf). That would be as a percentage of the potential labour force.
Simultaneously, it's easily possible that 30% of the actual labour force was out of work, which would point to a labour force participation rate of 19/30=63%, which is very plausible, it's 66% today.
Thanks!