An estimated 6% of all employees are working fewer hours per week than they would like, and about 2% of potential employees are not counted as unemployed because they have not looked for work in the past few weeks, even though they would like to work. Adding these individuals to those officially classified as unemployed implies that about 15% of potential labor-force participants are working less than they want.
事实上，官方失业率数字低估了劳动力市场的疲软程度。据估计，6%的雇员的每周工作时间少于期望时间，大约2%的潜在雇员被计为失业，因为他们在过去数周内想找但没能找到工作。将这些个人加到被官方失业统计口径中，则有15%的潜在劳动参与者不能如愿工作。