IIRC anyone looking at the unemployment rate has to look at some factors that could inflate or deflate the rate. The unemployment rate is a proportion of those

IIRC anyone looking at the unemployment rate has to look at some factors that could inflate or deflate the rate. The unemployment rate is a proportion of those seeking employment that do not have a job. This means that as time goes on, people who would like to have a job stop seeking and therefore stop contributing to the unemployment rate (eg. someone going homeless actually makes the unemployment rate go down). On the converse side, seasonal workers and those in between jobs also inflate unemployment numbers to a small extent. In addition, the employment rate does not measure underemployment, which is important as the gig economy becomes more and more common (although perhaps not as much during quarantine).