Suppose that in a particular month roughly 8 million people in the United States were seeking jobs but had not found them. Suppose that 2 million of these people give up their searches in the following month and stopped looking for work. What will happen to the unemployment rate, all other things unchanged? It will rise. It will fall. It will be unaffected, because none of these people is working. Not enough information is provided to determine what happens to the unemployment rate.