Are we using student numbers to massage unemployment figures?

Probably by default, and governments of all hues are party to it. When in power that is.

It is one of those political conceits like "pension credits" where unemployed people over 60 (?) are encouraged to register for "pension credits" which reduces there need to visit dole offices. The lie is seen when you realise a 60 year-old has enough pension contributions already. Likewise those "education" time-outs, teaching job search skills. All those wheezes remove people from the "unemployed" statistics despite the fact that the "job-search" timeouts are job-search days, transmuted to "education" and thus not unemployed.

I am sure there are many other mendacious wheezes that governments play on us.

But, it is argued, that university education teaches analytical skills. As if analysis can't be taught as a skill in its own right!

Let me see, is there a University course on "analysis" as a life skill?