> Current French (8.2%), Spanish (10.3%) or even Swedish (8.6%) unemployment

This obviously doesn't tell the whole story, because it only measures people actively in the workforce. Meanwhile, a far larger portion of Sweden's population is actually employed compared to the US.

Sweden's laborforce participation rate is 76% and in the US it is 62%. Sweden's employment rate is 69% and US's is 59%. Which statistics are more important?

Edit: had wrong employment rate