BLS: Unemployed More Likely to Go Shopping on Average Day Than Look for Job

[BlueStateSaint]

Anyone surprised?

BLS: Unemployed More Likely to Go Shopping on Average Day Than Look for Job

September 8, 2014 - 5:06 PM
By Ali Meyer
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(CNSNews.com) - On the average day, an unemployed American is more likely to be shopping—for things other than groceries and gas---than to be looking for a new job, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Only 18.9 percent of Americans who were unemployed (in surveys conducted from 2009 through 2013) spent time in job search and interviewing activities on an average day, according to BLS. Yet 40.8 percent of the unemployed did some kind of shopping on the average day--either in a store, by telephone, or on the Internet. 22.5 percent of the unemployed, according to BLS, were shopping for items other than groceries, food and gas.



The BLS conducts a study called the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) which tracks how Americans spend their time doing various activities during a given day. “The goal of the survey is to measure how people divide their time among life’s activities,” explains the BLS. “Individuals are randomly selected from subset of households that have completed their eighth and final month of interviews for the Current Population Survey (CPS). ATUS respondents are interviewed only one time about how they spent their time on the previous day, where they were, and whom they were with.”

The “unemployed” are defined as individuals who are jobless, available for work, and actively looking for a job.  But the BLS data shows that looking for a job may not be the most time-consuming activity in the unemployed Americans average day.

While only 18.9 percent of the unemployed said they spent time during the previous day in job-search and interviewing activities on an average day, the survey shows that when someone was looking for a job they spent an average of only 2.48 hours of the day doing so.

Hey--why go out and expend energy actually looking for a way to earn money that the government gives you for freeeee?!?!?!?

The rest is here:  http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/bls-unemployed-more-likely-go-shopping-average-day-look-job

[SVPete]

I was unemployed for nearly 9 months during the 2001-2002 Dot-Bomb (and I work in tech, perhaps the hardest hit sector). I know what it's like: to look every day for a couple of hours at ads on multiple sites; to send out scores of resumes' a week; to research companies and their sites for openings; to send my resumes' to recruiters; to persevere after months of zero responses; to wonder if there are any jobs "out there".

  Resorting to "Mall Therapy" never entered my brain! In Obamian America, I guess that makes me the idiot!

[Eupher]

George Carlin said it best. I'll attempt to paraphrase:

"America, it's all bullshit and it's bad for ya...You've been bought off with gizmos and toys and you don't know what's important anymore."

With options comes accountability. And responsibility. Playing X-box instead of balancing the checkbook; shopping instead of looking for a job that'll pay that credit card that you just maxed out, taking a nap instead of putting your nose to the grindstone and just gettin' it done -- for those who don't do the right thing even when nobody's looking, well, you're just cuttin' your own throat.

Eventually.

I believe in karma. I believe that the shitbags who pull this kind of shit and yet stand there with their hands out waiting for it to be filled with those trinkets and gizmos and EBT cards and welfare checks and somebody else's hard-earned money are just going to get pounded in the ass in the end.

[Wineslob]

Hey! The un-employed are boosting the O'conomy....OK!?