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As video games get better and job prospects worse, more young men are dropping out of the job market to spend their time in an alternate reality. Ryan Avent suspects this is the beginning of something big
[...] Over the last 15 years there has been a steady and disconcerting leak of young people away from the labour force in America. Between 2000 and 2015, the employment rate for men in their 20s without a college education dropped ten percentage points, from 82% to 72%. In 2015, remarkably, 22% of men in this group – a cohort of people in the most consequential years of their working lives – reported to surveyors that they had not worked at all in the prior 12 months. That was in 2015: when the unemployment rate nationwide fell to 5%, and the American economy added 2.7m new jobs. Back in 2000, less than 10% of such men were in similar circumstances.
What these individuals are not doing is clear enough, says Erik Hurst, an economist at the University of Chicago, who has been studying the phenomenon. They are not leaving home; in 2015 more than 50% lived with a parent or close relative. Neither are they getting married. What they are doing, Hurst reckons, is playing video games. As the hours young men spent in work dropped in the 2000s, hours spent in leisure activities rose nearly one-for-one. Of the rise in leisure time, 75% was accounted for by video games. It looks as though some small but meaningful share of the young-adult population is delaying employment or cutting back hours in order to spend more time with their video game of choice.
TFA is worth reading in full. Much more deliberative than usual.
Previously on SoylentNews: Why Ever Stop Playing Video Games?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 21 2017, @01:44AM
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm [bls.gov]
The participation rate, mentioned earlier, is included in this graph. It's broken down by age, gender, and race.
White men, 20 years and older, have a participation rate of just over 70%. That is the government's own number, not something made up by me, Shadowstats, or Trump. Women 20 years and older participation rate about 57%.
Looking at blacks, participation rate is about 61%. Almost 40% of black people are not employed - that is, unemployed.
You figure it out - white people with their "white privilege" are almost 30% not employed. Black people are almost 40% not employed.
Sure, there are some independently wealthy individuals who simply don't need to work - like retired basketball players. Some others are in business for themselves. Entrepeneurs aren't counted in labor statistics, unless they employ other people.
But, you figure it out. If four out of ten people in a given group are unable to find gainful employment, there is something wrong. Whites, being somewhat better off, are still hurting - 3 out of ten white males are unable to find gainful employment.
Now, do you still believe government's lies? The unemployment rate has been over 20% for more than a decade. 5% is an outright lie. Massage the numbers long enough, parse words into meaningless drivel, and you can pass off any numbers you want to pass off. THAT is what has happened to our employment statistics.