[RyanMcGreal]

There's still a problem: when the unemployment rate starts to fall six months or a year after it spikes, that in itself tells you nothing about whether people are exiting unemployment because they've found jobs or because they've given up looking.

[natevc2]

You could make the unemployment number get "better" by convincing people that they shouldn't try to find a job because the market is so bad.

That is why a lot of people look at the payroll report at the same time. But the payroll report usually comes with large revisions.

[yummyfajitas]

Unemployment does not tell you this, but discouraged workers does.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t13.htm

There are 808,000 such people (as of october), up from 484,000 in october 2008.

[fnid]

Interesting. If you look at those numbers, the amount of people who used to work more is also declining, meaning people aren't earning as much as they used to from more than one job.