Another
category, not mentioned by
Noung, is those workers termed
discouraged.
In Canada, this element of the workforce can be particularly large, even during a period of seemingly good employment.
In general, this applies to those workers who, after weeks and months of fruitless search find no work, and drop out of the active workforce, discouraged; who will rejoin the active unemployed when the economy changes. Often this can include those who are comparatively well-qualified, say nurses, who have been, by deliberate public policy, unemployed.
By not including the discouraged in offical labour supply numbers, and justified by declaring they choose not to work, and dismiss as mostly women who have left the workforce to become wives, presumably, the employment picture in Canada certainly, is substantially misrepresented.