The main objective of this thesis is to improve the international comparisons of labour statistics, and to better serve labour market information system at inal and international levels. We addressed the issue of how to [me employment and unemployment and the classification of the working age population into various labour force states in both developed and developing countries. We examined the relevance of the international labour comparisons based on the standard ILO definition and classification across labour markets with different development stages, and the value of oyment definition as a measure of labour availabihty.