No, it isn’t a mistake. The rate of unemployment is shown as the number of unemployed people willing and able to work who are actively seeking employment. In a workforce of 1000, where 100 are not working and are seeking to work, the unemployment is 10% (100=10% of 1000) If in the following month 50 of those 100 who were looking for work last month get discouraged and stop looking, then only 50 people are considered to be unemployed (folks who don’t look aren’t counted),so the RATE of unemployment drops to only 5% (50=5% of 1000).
However, pre-Clinton revisions, those 5 who quit would still be counted.
I recently interviewed for a job at a local farm coop in Kansas. The hiring manager was a punk 25 year old kid. He made no bones about telling me that he was not about going to hire any “old people”. He went to great lengths to tell me that his new masters degree in accounting was more valuable than my experienced MBA. He told me that he intended to hire a recent college grad whether he had any experience or not, that he didnt need any old guys with a lot of experience because he could teach the new guy what he needed for him to know. I asked him, so if you dont know it, how will you teach it, to which he bluntly told me, I can hire a consultant. A week later I got a rejection letter, as did several of my experienced friends who also applied for the position.