Where does the published national unemployment figures come from?

Where does the government get the figures from the national unemployment figures from? From the number of JSA/UC claimants?

Isn't that misleading?

So, if there are 500,000 JSA/UC claimants at a given time, the government publishes 500,000 unemployed, but in reality it could be 4-10 TIMES that figure?

(NOTE: The figures become even more misleading and unreliable because many folks may have irregular employment/short-term employment which messes with the figures. These issues appear to occur irrespective of which party is "in charge", but appears to be worse in the last few years)

From the ONS
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment

The government published a figure of 1.28m not 500,000. Where do you get that number from?

The "500,000" figure was an example. Perhaps I should have said "for example", but the "if" sufficed.

So, where does the ONS get its figures from?

The ons lists it’s sources on reports put out.

(Surely, my point still stands?)

Source: Office for National Statistics – Labour Force Survey

It's even worse than I thought.

Sample size for the Labour Force Survey: 40,000

Claimant count (November 2019): 194.8 (those recorded as claiming JSA at that given time through the survey)

The unemployment figures and potential downfalls are well understood. There are several categories of unemployed.
1. Those on JSA which is simply read off the computer
2. Those out of work seeking employment but not on JSA
3. Those not working but doing other things like childcare or home keeping and living off a working partner
4. Those not economically active and are living off savings or accumulated wealth.
Etc etc

All are types of unemployment but not all are bad.

To understand the unemployment figures you need to understand what they are measuring. A sample size of 40,000 is excellent and by all measures unemployment is at a historic low. That is not to say that some who are employed struggle in life.