Explain three difficulties economists face when they try to measure unemployment accurately.

Unemployment, while useful in some cases, is inherently flawed as a metric for socio-economic progress. Official unemployment statistics fail to take into account the issue of hidden unemployment, defined as individuals who drop out of the labour force because they are discouraged from looking for work. This issue can be significant in some countries, and the same is true for underemployment - defined as part-time workers who would wish to be full-time. Finally, the unemployment metric is an average across the labour force, and thus does not account for disparities between groups within the macroeconomy.