# Probability question regarding range

I am stuck with the following question. It is as follows,

      | Employed   | UnEmployed   | Total
Male  |   460      |     40       |  500
Female|   140      |    260       |  400
Total |   600      |    300       |  900


If the person is selected and the selected person is male, what is the probability that the selected person is employed?

Now given are the counts not probability but the solution has used the counts as probabilities. I am confused as probabilities lie between 0 and 1. Please help out. Thanks

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## 1 Answer

The probability of an event is is the number of times the event can occur divided by total number of possible events. In your case, you have $500$ males out of which $460$ are employed. So the probability will be $\frac{460}{500}=\frac{23}{25}=0.92$

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Dennis' answer is correct if each person has the same chance of being selected which would be the case if when you say "selected" you mean "selected at random". The counts are not probabilities but as you can see the solution is a ratio of counts. – Michael Chernick Jun 17 '12 at 12:41
Thankyou for helping. – Fahad Uddin Jun 17 '12 at 13:18