This report, which includes the conclusions of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Working Party on Employment and Unemployment Statistics, analyzes arrangements for compensating workers in the OECD countries who are temporarily laid-off or subject to short-time work. In introductory sections to part 1, the concepts of partial unemployment and lay-offs are defined. Subsequent sections examine the differences among the various national administrative practices for the compensation of total and partial unemployment, explore the implications of these differences for the classification of laid-off persons in national unemployment statistics, discuss the imperfections of the international definitions of employment and unemployment, and propose ways in which these definitions might be improved. Annexes to part 1 contain proposals for ways to modify the 1954 international definitions of employment and unemployment and present definitions adapted by the Eighth International Conference of Labour Statisticians. Part 2 contains 11 chapters on individual OECD countries, providing material that served as the basis for the analysis in part 1. The institutional framework for compensation for lay-off and short-time working and statistical aspects (sources of statistics on unemployment) are discussed for these countries: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. (YLB)