Labour law mediates the relationship between workers, employing entities, trade unions and the government. Collective labour law relates to the tripartite relationship between employee, employer and union. Individual labour law concerns employees' rights at work also through the contract for work. Employment standards are social norms for the minimum socially acceptable conditions under which employees or contractors are allowed to work. Government agencies enforce labour law.
A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their workers—the price floor below which workers may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century.
A tariff is a tax on imports or exports between sovereign states. It is a form of regulation of foreign trade and a policy that taxes foreign products to encourage or safeguard domestic industry. Traditionally, states have used them as a source of income. Now, they are among the most widely used instruments of protectionism, along with import and export quotas.
Sweatshop is a pejorative term for a workplace that has very poor, socially unacceptable working conditions. The work may be difficult, dangerous, climatically challenged or underpaid. Workers in sweatshops may work long hours with low pay, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage; child labor laws may also be violated. The Fair Labor Association's "2006 Annual Public Report" inspected factories for FLA compliance in 18 countries including Bangladesh, El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, Malaysia, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, China, India, Vietnam, Honduras, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, and the US. The U.S. Department of Labor's "2015 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor" found that "18 countries did not meet the International Labour Organization's recommendation for an adequate number of inspectors."
Employment is a relationship between two parties, usually based on a contract where work is paid for, where one party, which may be a corporation, for profit, not-for-profit organization, co-operative or other entity is the employer and the other is the employee. Employees work in return for payment, which may be in the form of an hourly wage, by piecework or an annual salary, depending on the type of work an employee does or which sector they are working in. Employees in some fields or sectors may receive gratuities, bonus payment or stock options. In some types of employment, employees may receive benefits in addition to payment. Benefits can include health insurance, housing, disability insurance or use of a gym. Employment is typically governed by employment laws, organisation or legal contracts.
Unemployment benefits are payments made by authorized bodies to unemployed people. In the United States, benefits are funded by a compulsory governmental insurance system, not taxes on individual citizens. Depending on the jurisdiction and the status of the person, those sums may be small, covering only basic needs, or may compensate the lost time proportionally to the previous earned salary.
In public policy, a living wage is defined by advocates as the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet their basic needs. This is not the same as a subsistence wage, which refers to a biological minimum. Needs are defined to include food, housing, and other essential needs such as clothing. The goal of a living wage is to allow a worker to afford a basic but decent standard of living through employment without government subsidies. Due to the flexible nature of the term "needs", there is not one universally accepted measure of what a living wage is and as such it varies by location and household type. A related concept is that of a family wage – one sufficient to not only support oneself, but also to raise a family.
A salary is a form of payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour, or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis. From the point of view of running a business, salary can also be viewed as the cost of acquiring and retaining human resources for running operations, and is then termed personnel expense or salary expense. In accounting, salaries are recorded on payroll accounts.
The working poor are working people whose incomes fall below a given poverty line due to low-income jobs and low familial household income. These are people who spend at least 27 weeks in a year working or looking for employment, but remain under the poverty threshold.
Retraining or refresher training is the process of learning a new or the same old skill or trade for the same group of personnel. Retraining is required to be provided on a regular basis to avoid personnel obsolescence due to technological changes and the individuals' memory capacity. This short-term instruction course shall serve to re-acquaint personnel with skills previously learnt or to bring their knowledge or skills up-to-date (latest) so that skills stay sharp. This kind of training could be provided annually or more frequently as maybe required, based on the importance of consistency of the task of which the skill is involved. Examples of refreshers are cGMP, GDP, HSE trainings. Retraining shall also be conducted for an employee, when the employee is rated as ‘not qualified’ for a skill or knowledge, as determined based on the assessment of answers in the training questionnaire of the employee.
Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) is a federal program of the United States government to act as a way to reduce the damaging impact of imports felt by certain sectors of the U.S. economy. The current structure features four components of Trade Adjustment Assistance: for workers, firms, farmers, and communities. Each cabinet-level department was tasked with a different sector of the overall Trade Adjustment Assistance program. The program for workers is the largest, and administered by the U.S. Department of Labor. The program for farmers is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the firms and communities programs are administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The textile and clothing industries provide the single source of growth in Bangladesh's rapidly developing economy. Exports of textiles and garments are the principal source of foreign exchange earnings. By 2002 exports of textiles, clothing, and ready-made garments (RMG) accounted for 77% of Bangladesh's total merchandise exports. In 1972, the World Bank approximated the gross domestic product (GDP) of Bangladesh at US$6.29 billion, and it grew to $173.82 billion by 2014, with $31.2 billion of that generated by exports, 82% of which was ready-made garments. As of 2016 Bangladesh held the 2nd place in producing garments just after China. Bangladesh is the world's second-largest apparel exporter of western fast fashion brands. Sixty percent of the export contracts of western brands are with European buyers and about forty percent with American buyers. Only 5% of textile factories are owned by foreign investors, with most of the production being controlled by local investors. In the financial year 2016-2017 the RMG industry generated US$28.14 billion, which was 80.7% of the total export earnings in exports and 12.36% of the GDP; the industry was also taking on green manufacturing practices.
The Employment Development Department (EDD) provides a variety of services to businesses, workers, and job seekers. The EDD administers several multi-billion dollar benefit programs including the Unemployment Insurance (UI), Disability Insurance (DI), and Paid Family Leave (PFL) programs that provide financial stability to workers and their communities. The Department also provides critical employment service programs to Californians, collect the state’s labor market information and employment data, and serve as one of the nation’s largest tax agencies through our collection of payroll taxes.
German Statutory Accident Insurance or workers' compensation is among the oldest branches of German social insurance. Occupational accident insurance was established in Germany by statute in 1884. It is now a national, compulsory program that insures workers for injuries or illness incurred through their employment, or the commute to or from their employment. Wage earners, apprentices, family helpers and students including children in kindergarten are covered by this program. Almost all self-employed persons can voluntarily become insured. The German workers' compensation laws were the first of their kind.
The European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) was set up by the European Union in late 2006 to support to workers who have been made redundant as a result of trade liberalisation, so that they can either remain in employment or find a new job quickly. It provides counselling; job search and mobility allowances; new ICT skills and other forms of training; entrepreneurial support, including micro-credits.
North American Free Trade Agreement's impact on United States employment has been the object of ongoing debate since the 1994 inception of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico. NAFTA's proponents believe that more jobs were ultimately created in the USA. Opponents see the agreements as having been costly to well-paying American jobs.
As the Economy of China has rapidly developed, issues of labor relations have also developed.
Manufacturing in the United States is a vital sector. The United States is the world's second largest manufacturer with a record high real output in Q1 2018 of $2.00 trillion well above the 2007 peak before the Great Recession of $1.95 trillion. The U.S. manufacturing industry employed 12.35 million people in December 2016 and 12.56 million in December 2017, an increase of 207,000 or 1.7%. Though still a large part of the US economy, in Q1 2018 manufacturing contributed less to GDP than the 'Finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing' sector, the 'Government' sector, or 'Professional and business services' sector.
As unemployed according to the art. 2 of the Ukrainian Law on Employment of Population are qualified citizens capable of work and of employable age, who due to lack of a job do not have any income or other earnings laid down by the law and are registered in the State Employment Center as looking for work, ready and able to start working. This definition also includes persons with disabilities who not attained retirement age and are registered as seeking employment.
Dislocated worker funding is typically used to help workers in events of mass employment loss. A dislocated or displaced worker is defined as an individual who has been laid off or received notice of a potential layoff and has very little chance of finding employment in their current occupation when attempting to return to the workforce. Displaced workers are most frequently found in the manufacturing industry. Legislation addressing training for these workers was first introduced in 1959 through the passing of the Area Redevelopment Act of 1959. Over the years, legislation funding these programs has included wording holding states and private businesses accountable for the roles in the dislocation of workers. Due to the importance of this funding and the negative economic impact of displaced workers, the United States has passed continuing legislation as recent as 2014 and 2015.
