What is True Unemployment Rate?

What is the real unemployment rate?  That’s the question you may want to ask and perhaps you will be no smarter after the following.  Now, the figures released from the Statistical Institute of Belize as of September 2016 posted on the SIB’s website states that unemployment stands at eleven point one percent.  This year in January, the Financial Secretary Jose Waight, came close enough when he told the media that it is twelve percent. That a mere two months ago. In revising the budget presentations and doing some fact-checking, we have come across a much lower figure. The PM told the nation on tabling the budget for 2017-2018, on page twenty-three, that unemployment has gone down to eight percent. So what’s the real figure? We are also trying to figure it out.