No, because that it not what "unemployed" means according to the definition of the unemployment rate. This is not a secret or a conspiracy. I learned this in ev

No, because that it not what "unemployed" means according to the definition of the unemployment rate. This is not a secret or a conspiracy. I learned this in every economics class I ever took, including one in high school. Economists and the government are aware of the tradeoffs involved. If you want to know how many people gave up looking for work, that is tracked too, but not as well: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=aAf https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=aAf It becomes pretty difficult to categorize people as "discouraged workers" because it lumps together a lot of people whose situations are different. For example, a lot of older people who get laid off and can't find another job similar to their previous one might retire early. Should they count as discouraged workers? If so, should they count that year, or for the rest of their lives? What about the many young people who got laid off during the recession and chose to go to grad school during that time because their job prospects weren't good? Were they discouraged workers or not? If the government elevated the discouraged worker rate to the same level of importance as the unemployment rate, it wouldn't be very reliable, and most researchers would end up ignoring it because they have serious problems with the methodology.