Unemployment rate doesn't give you the full story. It's always been a suspect metric in my opinion, kind of like how people use Kelly Blue Book values for cars. It's not a good reflection of the real world complexities. I'm not unemployed, but I'm also stuck in my current position because of the 100 applications I may have applied for, I get a response from 1 and I may not even make it to the interview phase. Pre-2020 that would've been 1 in 10 applications. Unemployment rate doesn't capture that. It doesn't capture stress levels due to lack of mobility between employers, nor people that have given up, nor part time workers, etc
Unrate is an indicator more than anything else. The BLS has detailed data on dozens of dimensions including rates of underemployment. Unrate is convenient because it's apples to apples.
