Well, a backpack works for me, I suppose. I usually carry a lot of other stuff anyway. Of coruse it's mostly urban-urban rather than sub-urban here so it's a different type of walk.
The Very-Many-Questions-Not-Worth-Their-Own-Thread Thread XXXIV
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SS-18 ICBM
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Can someone help me with interpreting some data?
The recent decline in this rate has been noted as a sign of a weaker economy, compared to record high achieved during the dot-com bubble. But the curious thing is that the record low was achieved during the post-WW2 economic boom. What exactly does the new low mean?United States Labor Force Participation Rate said:
Lexicus
Deity
It mostly means the population is aging with more people living past retirement.
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
Doesn't labor participation only count those of working age?
Lexicus
Deity
The current demand for workers has brought more people into the workforce even if they are among the least skilled. That is why the unemployment rate went up.
Lohrenswald
世界的 bottom ranked physicist
Wait what?
sophie
Break My Heart
Unemployment is a representation of % of people who are currently employed or are currently, actively looking for work. It doesn't (iirc.) count people who are able to work, but have stopped looking for work. The denominator represents the total workforce of the economy being observed. An unemployment of 8% means that 92% of all people who are able and want to work have successfully found employment. What bj is getting at is that because unemployment is dropping, people who had previously tried to find work but were unsuccessful and stopped trying (and therefore dropped out of the denominator) have been recently emboldened by the job prospects and so have restarted their job search, but have yet to have successfully found employment (whether due to latency or, as bj suggests, lack of qualifications). An increase in the denominantor without a consequential increase in the numerator (yet), means that the unemployment% has increased even though there are still job openings which need to be filled.
I can't remember if unemployment accounts for underemployment, but if it doesn't, that would further exacerbate the figure as you could expect people quitting their jobs to pursue a better position on the open market.
Ferocitus
Deity
You might not remember because the way unemployment statistics are collected
varies from state to state. The collection method can also be changed so that a
party in power looks better to the electorate. Sometimes (in Australia at least)
the numbers of registered unemployed was used; othertimes the unemployment rate
was estimated from a (phone) sample.
Sometimes those looking for more work are excluded from the unemployed stats and
you have to find those fine details yourself from the equivalent of our (federal)
Bureau of Statistics.
That old saw "Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics" is a bit harsh on statisticians:
it's the people who manipulate stats for their own purposes who are to blame,
not the eggheads who prepare them for the said Evil Ones.
It's the total population divided by what portion of that population holds actual employment. After WWII women dropped out of paid employment, as men could finance the family by themselves, and female career opportunities were limited. In the 70s through 90s gender based career limitations mostly went away, and far higher numbers of women entered the workforce. During the Great Recession many people dropped out of the workforce, for no point with no jobs. But also the Baby Boom is hitting prime retirement years. So a sizable part of the population is taking that final dropout from the labor force.
All of these trends eb and flow.
Yes ^^
And there's this:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics also calculates six alternate measures of unemployment, U1 through U6, that measure different aspects of unemployment:[45]
- U1:[46] Percentage of labor force unemployed 15 weeks or longer.
- U2: Percentage of labor force who lost jobs or completed temporary work.
- U3: Official unemployment rate per the ILO definition occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively looked for work within the past four weeks.[47]
- U4: U3 + "discouraged workers", or those who have stopped looking for work because current economic conditions make them believe that no work is available for them.
- U5: U4 + other "marginally attached workers", or "loosely attached workers", or those who "would like" and are able to work, but have not looked for work recently.
- U6: U5 + Part-time workers who want to work full-time, but cannot due to economic reasons (underemployment).
SS-18 ICBM
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How do they know who's looking for a job or not? It has to be more than just the statistics for those collecting unemployment benefits if it to be accurate.
hobbsyoyo
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Pretty sure the government does surveys. Could be wrong.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Spinning off a discussion in the Woss-You-Orrible-Lot-Bin-Readin'-Then thread:
Is there a reason why book covers haven't come to be "fixed", so to speak, in the same way that album covers have? At least past a certain point, albums are very generally issued with the same cover, even if that cover isn't very good, because it has become directly identified with the album. Exceptions exist, but it is not the norm. Not so for books: it's common for new editions to come with modified or even totally different covers. While certain books might have particularly well-known first edition covers, there's no expectation that newer editions will use this artwork, and if anything the expectation seems to be that they will replace or heavily modify it.
Is it due to the different way popular culture evolved around books and music? Is it just due to differing industry conventions? Is it some sort of legal thing?
Is there a reason why book covers haven't come to be "fixed", so to speak, in the same way that album covers have? At least past a certain point, albums are very generally issued with the same cover, even if that cover isn't very good, because it has become directly identified with the album. Exceptions exist, but it is not the norm. Not so for books: it's common for new editions to come with modified or even totally different covers. While certain books might have particularly well-known first edition covers, there's no expectation that newer editions will use this artwork, and if anything the expectation seems to be that they will replace or heavily modify it.
Is it due to the different way popular culture evolved around books and music? Is it just due to differing industry conventions? Is it some sort of legal thing?
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hobbsyoyo
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In addition (but unfortunately not answering the question) books also take on movie stills as their covers when adaptations are released. Moreover, once that happens in my experience the cover is locked in for years regardless of how well the movie was received critically or commercially.
I'm pretty sure Battlefield Earth still has John Travolta's mug on it despite well, the movie itself.
I might be wrong, but can a book in one country not be published by different publishers? (I'd not know how, but I have the Mars Trilogy here, via Amazon, and the first book comes from a different publisher than the 2 others)
Because then I'd guess that they just have their own inhouse artists, and do not share/sell the art between each other.
Because then I'd guess that they just have their own inhouse artists, and do not share/sell the art between each other.
Don't judge a book by it's cover?
A book's cover art just isn't particularly important to the identity of the book. So the marketing weenies get ahold of it and decide "this would look cool", typically with having little to no familiarity with the content of the book.Depends on the age of the product. A new release, one publisher controls. But if it remains popular over time, the rights to it may be sold, or licensed out. So if something is 30 or 40 years old, and it's gone back into print, there's a chance a different publisher is handling it. But there's also a chance publishers have merged, or bought out another, or just changed names.
Ferocitus
Deity
Don't judge a book by it's cover?
Sometimes you can, even after very subtle changes to the cover...
Lohrenswald
世界的 bottom ranked physicist
Why is it obvious for albums to keep covers but not for books to change
Back when people actually did albums, which is to a large extent ancient history now, the cover are was as much an identifier as the name. many albums didn't even actually have names.
This sold umpteen million copies, and was instantly recognizable to 2 generations of Western music fans.
It didn't have a title.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin_IV
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