The true figure would have been larger still when accounting for people who dropped out of the labor force, economists said.Such individuals may have been discouraged from looking for work due to the lackluster state of the job market, or may not have been able to look for work because of health concerns or child-care duties, for example.This is important because the federal government doesn’t count people as being unemployed if they’re not in the labor force. To be counted as in the labor force, people must be available to work and actively looking for a job.“One of the things many people seem to have missed is, the unemployment rate doesn’t count people who aren’t looking for work,” said Michael Farren, an economist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University..