Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 February 26

= February 26 =

Hours of employment in the United states
I understand that the (un)employment rate is disputed because many have stopped looking and many work part time. I'm looking for data that shows total hours the whole country works over the years and maybe some money figures associated.

It might be here https://www.bls.gov/ces/ but I cannot find it.

Many thanks if anyone can help.

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:39, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * That would be pretty much impossible to determine, because the U.S. government keeps no records of the work hours of exempt (supervisory) employees, or self employed people such as independent contractors. I have been self employed for 25 years, and report only my income and expenses, not how many hours I actually work. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  01:45, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I know a (now retired) lawyer who once billed for 25 hours in 1 day... legitimately (it involved a flight on the old Concord). Blueboar (talk) 02:08, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually, since many law firms (in the UK) both round up their billed durations on given tasks to the nearest quarter hour (or similar division), and because many standard legal tasks are billed for a set period whether or not it takes longer – or shorter! – billing clients for more than the hours in a given day is neither unknown nor untoward. This doesn't have tax implications since most solicitors doing so are partners in their firms and thus not paid by the hour. [My father, who used to be a Soliciters' Accountant, told me about this once.]
 * On the topic that Anna Frodesiak specifically raises, I concur with Cullen328: the US (or UK) government can only directly count the people actually registered as unemployed/looking for work; the numbers of those desiring work but not so registered for whatever reasons, and those of employment age but not currently seeking paid work, can only be estimated, and since all governments wish to be able to announce as low an unemployment rate as possible, such estimates are usually not made public or added to the "headline" unemployment rate. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.220.212.253 (talk) 03:14, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Your premises are incorrect. The unemployment rate is not disputed and part-time work counts as employed. In my country, the statistical method to calculate the unemployment rate is copied from the United States. In my country, the government conducts one thousand recently unemployed phone interviews each month about their employment status. If they're employed full-time or at least one hour per week part-time they're employed and the unemployment rate goes down. If they're in full-time education then they're not looking for work then they've left the workforce. If they're unemployed and not looking for work then they're left the workforce. If their partner is employed and they're unemployed and looking for work then they're left the workforce. If they're unemployed and looking for work then they're unemployed and the unemployment rate goes up. The government doesn't bother counting the real number unemployed. Sleigh (talk) 11:17, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * You've left off agricultural workers, imprisoned workers, military, etc... It is a lot more complicated. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 17:54, 26 February 2018 (UTC)


 * People are getting lost in the weeds here. Anna asked a very direct question regarding hours worked per year.  this I believe has the data she is looking for.  It is hours worked per worker per year.  I hope that helps.  -- Jayron 32 17:43, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank you!! Very interesting. I'm hopelessly confused now while looking at what Jayron32 provided and what Sleigh wrote. I'm not even sure what I'm trying to find out any more. :) I guess what I'm looking for is: Is the population in the US more idle now that manufacturing has mostly gone? Is all this stuff about in or out of the workforce, and part or full time, better replaced with looking at how many able-bodied adults there are compared with how many hours of work are being done in the country? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:52, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Its much more complicated today because even the empiric data about work, gdp, national debt etc. can and will be manipulated with tricks, for political reasons, because of course these numbers are used as a central benchmark to judge the ruling party/President and their policies. If a government for example cuts all social benefits connected to a status of unemployment most unemployed will stop reporting/claim their status and if the government subsidize the creation of new jobs some market entities will try to create virtual fake employment to get a little extra money or taxcredits. In such cases the ruling government will play along and use the "evidence" to show everyone how well they rule the country. --Kharon (talk) 05:00, 27 February 2018 (UTC)


 * You could do worse than to take the number of employed persons in the US and multiply by 2080, which is 40 X 52. Not everyone works 2080 hours in a year. Part-time workers would work less, while many salaried employees would work more. But it could put you in the ballpark. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:44, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not familiar with the way that stats are collected in the US, but I do know for UK and Europe. Unemployment is measured by a sample survey which certainly collects whether people are employed full time or part time. In the UK it is called the Quarterly Labour Force Survey. Earnings are in the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, which is a good source for how many hours people work per week. You might be able to find out what the nearest equivalents are in the US. OECD is an excellent source for international comparisons and may well have methodological studies available for download to guide you towards good sources for the US. There has been a lot of discussion in economics journals of underemployment as opposed to unemployment. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:08, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

The original statement that the US unemployment rate is disputed is incorrect. Some people question whether it is a proper measure, mainly for partisan political reasons. For example, the extensive use of U-6 (see: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE, as opposed to actual unemployment date, here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE ) to criticize President Obama has not been repeated under President Trump. It should also be noted that use of such data when discussing unemployment (which it does not measure) is an effort to deceive, rather than inform. It can be quite embarrassing when people using such data are shown that it has actually improved far faster – in fact, faster than at any time in history – during the period when they are attempting to show the opposite. Lots of fun!

Average hourly earnings are here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES0500000003; multiply by average weekly hours worked (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AWHAETP) and number of employees (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CE16OV) and you’ll end up with something that approximates the cost of labor in the economy. DOR (HK) (talk) 15:46, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * You may have heard the related classic verdict from F. K. Otto Dibelius (which many sources wrongly claim to be from Winston Churchill): 'Do not trust any statistics you did not fake yourself.' --Kharon (talk) 21:57, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * As echoed by Dilbert. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:50, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * See Lies, damned lies, and statistics for some theories. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:44, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank you all! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 20:47, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Germanic areas in northern Italy
I was looking at this old ethnolinguistic map http://uurl.kbr.be/1009932. Does anybody know what are the little germanic areas just north of Como and south of Vicenza? They don't figure on this modern map of German dialects in Italy: http://www.isolelinguistiche.it/files/Sprachinseln/MAPPA_JPG_web_XS.jpg. Thanks! --2.34.183.183 (talk) 23:50, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Those seem to be speakers of the Cimbrian language. --Wrongfilter (talk) 07:31, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The "Map of Countries and Ethnic Groups of Europe" as its title says is by no means an ethnolinguistic map. The dotted areas south and east of Vicenza depict ethnic Germans (speaking Italian). It was discussed here or elsewhere in Wikipedia a couple of years ago, see also a book of 1905 on this subject. The dotted areas in Lombardia may have a similar background. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 00:13, 1 March 2018 (UTC)