Buried inside the official US employment report each month is a little-known figure that gives a much less rosy picture of the labour market than the headlines.
The government agency that produces the data also publishes an alternative measure that tries to capture the hidden unemployed, those who are not included in the official unemployment rate for various statistical reasons.
That broader measure is dramatically higher, at 9.7 percent in May, compared with the official level of 5.6 percent.
That's an extra 5.96 million people, in addition to the 8.2 million "officially" unemployed, who are waiting on the sidelines and may at some point step back into the labour force.
Although it receives little notice, the adjusted jobless rate has important implications for Federal Reserve policy-makers because it suggests the job market will not tighten as quickly as some in the financial markets believe.
"It shows there is more slack in the labour market than appears on the surface and as job opportunities improve, we'll see people re-entering the labour force to search for work," said former Fed Governor Lyle Gramley.
"That means fears that inflation is about break out all over the place do not seem warranted," he said in an interview.
The Federal Reserve is widely expected to start raising interest rates later this month, as the economy recovers from the 2001 recession and job creation picks up. But the Fed can boost rates at a slower pace if inflation is not a big threat.
The Labour Department's adjusted measure of unemployment adds in people it describes as "marginally attached" to the labour force. These are workers who have not actively looked for work in the past four weeks, including "discouraged workers" who have given up altogether. They also include those who have given up looking for full-time jobs and have settled for part-time work instead.
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