High Unemployment Rate Among Boulder LinkedIn Members

I recently posted the complete results and preliminary analysis of the poll results. One data that stood out is the 25% of the people reporting as unemployed. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers are far below this for Boulder MCA, a about 4.6%. So why one in four in LinkedIn reported unemployed?

There are two possible reasons

1. People more actively use LinkedIn when they are searching for jobs, especially in between jobs.
2. Since respondents self selected the poll is over represented by unemployed

So we cannot say that LinkedIn members who work and live and Boulder area have a higher unemployment rate than the rest of the population.