In many cases it is people chooseing to work over time to make more money.
While worker productivity has been going up, income has remained basically flat (adjusting for inflation). So might it not be more accurate to say that workers have been forced to work longer hours just to stay afloat, rather than than they 'chose' to work for more money?
As far as employment figures go, I consider them to be meaningless when comparing different countries because there isn't common definition of what 'looking for work' is, so I strongly suspect that a lot of the US's unemployment rate is hidden in the ranks of 'discouraged workers'. What really matters is not what the unemployment rate is, but rather how hard it is to find a job in your field of endeavour.
(no subject)
While worker productivity has been going up, income has remained basically flat (adjusting for inflation). So might it not be more accurate to say that workers have been forced to work longer hours just to stay afloat, rather than than they 'chose' to work for more money?
As far as employment figures go, I consider them to be meaningless when comparing different countries because there isn't common definition of what 'looking for work' is, so I strongly suspect that a lot of the US's unemployment rate is hidden in the ranks of 'discouraged workers'. What really matters is not what the unemployment rate is, but rather how hard it is to find a job in your field of endeavour.