• yiliu@informis.land
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      8 months ago

      It is a thing, people who aren’t actively looking for work (or working) aren’t factored into unemployment numbers. A stay-at-home parent isn’t considered unemployed, or the unemployment numbers would be closer to 40%.

      Basically, the unemployment rate means: what share of people are looking for work, but can’t find any?

      This also means that there’s a certain number of people who try to find work, aren’t able to find any, and eventually just give up to (stereotypically) move into their parents’ basement or whatever. I take it that AFaithfulNihilist is implying that the number of those people is rising significantly, but there’s not really any evidence for that.

      • drphungky@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        We also have numbers on discouraged workers. BLS publishes all of those numbers, it’s not like they’re a secret. It just tells you a lot less than the mainline number.