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.
“What percentage of the population between 18 and retirement age is engaged in paid work?”
Well, thats the Fed EMRATIO.
IIRC the Fed no longer uses the unemployment rate for serious analysis.