The unemployment rate, at least how the US calculates it, is a very poor metric. This has been well understood for decades, and even Ben Bernanke the Fed chairman at the time, conceded the point in 2009-10. Its all up to denominator problems.
Thats why the Fed created the EMRATIO.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO
The US EMRATIO has been effectively flatlined since EOY 2021.
Yep. Governments play all kinds of games with what counts as “unemployment”. They make it very easy to claim disability so they don’t have to count those people as being unemployed. If somebody is unemployed for a long time they claim the person “gave up” and therefore don’t count them as officially “unemployed”. Of course nobody ever bothers asking the unemployed person directly if they “gave up” or not....
The better measure is total employment rate. What percentage of the population between 18 and retirement age is engaged in paid work? Governments can’t play games with that measure. That percentage is far far lower than it used to be.