https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/jobs-report-growth-unemployment/

The unemployment rate, adjusted or otherwise, is a useful metric for economists, but it doesn’t quite capture how we tend to think about employment and joblessness in our day-to-day lives. What about your cousin who wants a gig but gave up looking a few months back? As far as the U-3 is concerned, your cousin isn’t in the labor force, so he isn’t part of the official unemployment rate.