Workforce

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The labour force participation rates of developed nations as of 2021 OECD Labour force participation rate.svg
The labour force participation rates of developed nations as of 2021

In macroeconomics, the workforce or labour force is the sum of those either working (i.e., the employed) or looking for work (i.e., the unemployed):

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Those neither working in the marketplace nor looking for work are out of the labour force. [1]

The sum of the labour force and out of the labour force results in the noninstitutional civilian population, that is, the number of people who (1) work (i.e., the employed), (2) can work but don't, although they are looking for a job (i.e., the unemployed), or (3) can work but don't, and are not looking for a job (i.e., out of the labour force). Stated otherwise, the noninstitutional civilian population is the total population minus people who cannot or choose not to work (children, retirees, soldiers, and incarcerated people). The noninstitutional civilian population is the number of people potentially available for civilian employment.

The labour force participation rate is defined as the ratio of the civilian labour force to the noninstitutional civilian population.

Formal and informal

Workers leaving the Tampella factory in Tampere, Finland in 1909 Tyopaiva paattyy Tampellassa.jpg
Workers leaving the Tampella factory in Tampere, Finland in 1909

Formal labour is any sort of employment that is structured and paid in a formal way. They are paid formally using payrolls paper, electronic card and alike. [2] Unlike the informal sector of the economy, formal labour within a country contributes to that country's gross national product. Informal labour is labour that falls short of being a formal arrangement in law or in practice. Labour inherit may come as formal or non-formal, an employee old enough but below retirement age bracket passing on to his children. [3] It can be paid or unpaid and it is always unstructured and unregulated. [4] Formal employment is more reliable than informal employment. Generally, the former yields higher income and greater benefits and securities for both men and women. [5]

Informal labour

The contribution of informal labourers is immense. Informal labour is expanding globally, most significantly in developing countries. [6] According to a study done by Jacques Charmes, in the year 2000 informal labour made up 57% of non-agricultural employment, 40% of urban employment, and 83% of the new jobs in Latin America. That same year, informal labour made up 78% of non-agricultural employment, 61% of urban employment, and 93% of the new jobs in Africa. [7] Particularly after an economic crisis, labourers tend to shift from the formal sector to the informal sector. This trend was seen after the Asian economic crisis which began in 1997. [6]

Informal labour and gender

Employed civilians by occupation and gender in the United States as of 2007 Employed civilians by occupation and sex - 2007.png
Employed civilians by occupation and gender in the United States as of 2007

Gender is frequently associated with informal labour. Women are employed more often informally than they are formally, and informal labour is an overall larger source of employment for females than it is for males. [5] Women frequent the informal sector of the economy through occupations like home-based workers and street vendors. [6] The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World shows that in the 1990s, 81% of women in Benin were street vendors, 55% in Guatemala, 44% in Mexico, 33% in Kenya, and 14% in India. Overall, 60% of women workers in the developing world are employed in the informal sector. [2]

The specific percentages are 84% and 58% for women in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America respectively. [2] The percentages for men in both of these areas of the world are lower, amounting to 63% and 48% respectively. [2] In Asia, 65% of women workers and 65% of men workers are employed in the informal sector. [2] Globally, a large percentage of women that are formally employed also work in the informal sector behind the scenes. These women make up the hidden work force. [2]

According to a 2021 FAO study, currently, 85 per cent of economic activity in Africa is conducted in the informal sector where women account for nearly 90 per cent of the informal labour force. [8] According to the ILO's 2016 employment analysis, 64 per cent of informal employment is in agriculture (relative to industry and services) in sub-Saharan Africa. [9] [8] Women have higher rates of informal employment than men with 92 per cent of women workers in informal employment versus 86 per cent of men. [9] [8]

Formal and informal labour can be divided into the subcategories of agricultural work and non-agricultural work. Martha Chen et al. believe these four categories of labour are closely related to one another. [10] A majority of agricultural work is informal, which the Penguin Atlas for Women in the World defines as unregistered or unstructured. [2] Non-agricultural work can also be informal. According to Martha Chen et al., informal labour makes up 48% of non-agricultural work in North Africa, 51% in Latin America, 65% in Asia, and 72% in Sub-Saharan Africa. [5]

Agriculture and informal economic activity are among some of the most important sources of livelihood for women. [8] Women are estimated to account for approximately 70 per cent of informal cross-border traders [11] and are also prevalent among owners of micro, small, or medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). [8] MSMEs are more vulnerable to market shocks and market disruptions. For women-owned MSMEs this is often compounded by their lack of access to credit and financial liquidity compared to larger businesses. [8] However, MSMEs are often more vulnerable to market shocks and market disruptions. [8] For women-owned MSMEs, this is often compounded by their lack of access to credit and financial liquidity compared to larger businesses [8] .

Agricultural work

This section is an excerpt from Farmworker.[ edit ]
Two farm workers cleaning and picking at an onion field, location unknown Onion Picking and Cleaning.jpg
Two farm workers cleaning and picking at an onion field, location unknown
Farm workers on a field near Mount Williamson in Inyo County, California. This photograph is by Ansel Adams. Ansel Adams - Farm workers and Mt. Williamson.jpg
Farm workers on a field near Mount Williamson in Inyo County, California. This photograph is by Ansel Adams.

A farmworker, farmhand or agricultural worker is someone employed for labor in agriculture. In labor law, the term "farmworker" is sometimes used more narrowly, applying only to a hired worker involved in agricultural production, including harvesting, but not to a worker in other on-farm jobs, such as picking fruit.

Agricultural work varies widely depending on context, degree of mechanization and crop. In countries like the United States where there is a declining population of American citizens working on farms — temporary or itinerant skilled labor from outside the country is recruited for labor-intensive crops like vegetables and fruits.

Sudanese farmer reviews cantaloupe production, south of Khartoum `ml mn lswdn.jpg
Sudanese farmer reviews cantaloupe production, south of Khartoum
A Rwandan farmworker 02 Jean Claude at work.jpg
A Rwandan farmworker
Agricultural labor is often the first community affected by the human health impacts of environmental issues related to agriculture, such as health effects of pesticides or exposure to other health challenges such as valley fever. To address these environmental concerns, immigration challenges and marginal working conditions, many labor rights, economic justice and environmental justice movements have been organized or supported by farmworkers.

Paid and unpaid work are also closely related with formal and informal labour. Some informal work is unpaid, or paid under the table. [10] Unpaid work can be work that is done at home to sustain a family, like child care work, or actual habitual daily labour that is not monetarily rewarded, like working the fields. [2] Unpaid workers have zero earnings, and although their work is valuable, it is hard to estimate its true value. The controversial debate still stands. Men and women tend to work in different areas of the economy, regardless of whether their work is paid or unpaid. Women focus on the service sector, while men focus on the industrial sector.

Unpaid work and gender

Women usually work fewer hours in income generating jobs than men do. [5] Often it is housework that is unpaid. Worldwide, women and girls are responsible for a great amount of household work. [2]

The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World, published in 2008, stated that in Madagascar, women spend 20 hours per week on housework, while men spend only two. [2] In Mexico, women spend 33 hours and men spend 5 hours. [2] In Mongolia the housework hours amount to 27 and 12 for women and men respectively. [2] In Spain, women spend 26 hours on housework and men spend 4 hours. [2] Only in the Netherlands do men spend 10% more time than women do on activities within the home or for the household. [2]

The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World also stated that in developing countries, women and girls spend a significant amount of time fetching water for the week, while men do not. For example, in Malawi women spend 6.3 hours per week fetching water, while men spend 43 minutes. Girls in Malawi spend 3.3 hours per week fetching water, and boys spend 1.1 hours. [2] Even if women and men both spend time on household work and other unpaid activities, this work is also gendered. [5]

Sick leave and gender

In the United Kingdom in 2014, two-thirds of workers on long-term sick leave were women, despite women only constituting half of the workforce, even after excluding maternity leave. [12]

Globalisation of the labour market

The global supply of labour almost doubled in absolute numbers between the 1980s and early 2000s, with half of that growth coming from Asia. [13] At the same time, the rate at which new workers entered the workforce in the Western world began to decline. The growing pool of global labour is accessed by employers in more advanced economies through various methods, including imports of goods, offshoring of production, and immigration. [14] Global labor arbitrage, the practice of accessing the lowest-cost workers from all parts of the world, is partly a result of this enormous growth in the workforce. While most of the absolute increase in this global labour supply consisted of less-educated workers (those without higher education), the relative supply of workers with higher education increased by about 50 percent during the same period. [14] From 1980 to 2010, the global workforce grew from 1.2 to 2.9 billion people. According to a 2012 report by the McKinsey Global Institute, this was caused mostly by developing nations, where there was a "farm to factory" transition. Non-farming jobs grew from 54 percent in 1980 to almost 73 percent in 2010. This industrialization took an estimated 620 million people out of poverty and contributed to the economic development of China, India and others. [15]

Convergys call center in Baguio, the Philippines (example of a third party outsourcing firm) Convergys Baguio.JPG
Convergys call center in Baguio, the Philippines (example of a third party outsourcing firm)

Under the "old" international division of labor, until around 1970, underdeveloped areas were incorporated into the world economy principally as suppliers of minerals and agricultural commodities. However, as developing economies are merged into the world economy, more production takes place in these economies. [16] This has led to a trend of transference, or what is also known as the "global industrial shift ", in which production processes are relocated from developed countries (such as the US, European countries, and Japan) to developing countries in Asia (such as China, Vietnam, and India), Mexico and Central America. This is because companies search for the cheapest locations to manufacture and assemble components, so low-cost labor-intensive parts of the manufacturing process are shifted to the developing world where costs are substantially lower.

But not only manufacturing processes are shifted to the developing world. The growth of offshore outsourcing of IT-enabled services (such as offshore custom software development and business process outsourcing) is linked to the availability of large amounts of reliable and affordable communication infrastructure following the telecommunication and Internet expansion of the late 1990s. [17]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unemployment</span> People without work and actively seeking work

Unemployment, according to the OECD, is people above a specified age not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the reference period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Informal economy</span> Economic activity unregulated by government

An informal economy is the part of any economy that is neither taxed nor monitored by any form of government. Although the informal sector makes up a significant portion of the economies in developing countries, it is sometimes stigmatized as troublesome and unmanageable. However, the informal sector provides critical economic opportunities for the poor and has been expanding rapidly since the 1960s. Integrating the informal economy into the formal sector is an important policy challenge.

The Current Population Survey (CPS) is a monthly survey of about 60,000 U.S. households conducted by the United States Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS uses the data to publish reports early each month called the Employment Situation. This report provides estimates of the unemployment rate and the numbers of employed and unemployed people in the United States based on the CPS. A readable Employment Situation Summary is provided monthly. Annual estimates include employment and unemployment in large metropolitan areas. Researchers can use some CPS microdata to investigate these or other topics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Double burden</span> Workload of people who both earn money and have significant domestic responsibilities

A double burden is the workload of people who work to earn money, but who are also responsible for significant amounts of unpaid domestic labor. This phenomenon is also known as the Second Shift as in Arlie Hochschild's book of the same name. In couples where both partners have paid jobs, women often spend significantly more time than men on household chores and caring work, such as childrearing or caring for sick family members. This outcome is determined in large part by traditional gender roles that have been accepted by society over time. Labor market constraints also play a role in determining who does the bulk of unpaid work.

Reserve army of labour is a concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy. It refers to the unemployed and underemployed in capitalist society. It is synonymous with "industrial reserve army" or "relative surplus population", except that the unemployed can be defined as those actually looking for work and that the relative surplus population also includes people unable to work. The use of the word "army" refers to the workers being conscripted and regimented in the workplace in a hierarchy under the command or authority of the owners of capital.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Farmworker</span> Performs agricultural labor

A farmworker, farmhand or agricultural worker is someone employed for labor in agriculture. In labor law, the term "farmworker" is sometimes used more narrowly, applying only to a hired worker involved in agricultural production, including harvesting, but not to a worker in other on-farm jobs, such as picking fruit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Employment-to-population ratio</span> Statistical ratio; proportion of a working age population that is employed

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development defines the employment rate as the employment-to-population ratio. This is a statistical ratio that measures the proportion of a country's working age population that is employed. This includes people that have stopped looking for work. The International Labour Organization states that a person is considered employed if they have worked at least 1 hour in "gainful" employment in the most recent week.

The economic development in India followed socialist-inspired politicians for most of its independent history, including state-ownership of many sectors; India's per capita income increased at only around 1% annualised rate in the three decades after its independence. Since the mid-1980s, India has slowly opened up its markets through economic liberalisation. After more fundamental reforms since 1991 and their renewal in the 2000s, India has progressed towards a free market economy. The Indian economy is still performing well, with foreign investment and looser regulations driving significant growth in the country.

Labour in India refers to employment in the economy of India. In 2020, there were around 476.67 million workers in India, the second largest after China. Out of which, agriculture industry consist of 41.19%, industry sector consist of 26.18% and service sector consist 32.33% of total labour force. Of these over 94 percent work in unincorporated, unorganised enterprises ranging from pushcart vendors to home-based diamond and gem polishing operations. The organised sector includes workers employed by the government, state-owned enterprises and private sector enterprises. In 2008, the organised sector employed 27.5 million workers, of which 17.3 million worked for government or government owned entities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in the workforce</span> All women who perform some kind of job

Since the Industrial Revolution, participation of women in the workforce outside the home has increased in industrialized nations, with particularly large growth seen in the 20th century. Largely seen as a boon for industrial society, women in the workforce contribute to a higher national economic output as measure in GDP as well as decreasing labor costs by increasing the labor supply in a society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child labour in Bangladesh</span>

Child labour in Bangladesh is significant, with 4.7 million children aged 5 to 14 in the work force in 2002-03. Out of the child labourers engaged in the work force, 83% are employed in rural areas and 17% are employed in urban areas. Child labour can be found in agriculture, poultry breeding, fish processing, the garment sector and the leather industry, as well as in shoe production. Children are involved in jute processing, the production of candles, soap and furniture. They work in the salt industry, the production of asbestos, bitumen, tiles and ship breaking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unpaid work</span> Labor that does not receive any direct remuneration

Unpaid labor or unpaid work is defined as labor or work that does not receive any direct remuneration. This is a form of non-market work which can fall into one of two categories: (1) unpaid work that is placed within the production boundary of the System of National Accounts (SNA), such as gross domestic product (GDP); and (2) unpaid work that falls outside of the production boundary, such as domestic labor that occurs inside households for their consumption. Unpaid labor is visible in many forms and is not limited to activities within a household. Other types of unpaid labor activities include volunteering as a form of charity work and interning as a form of unpaid employment. In a lot of countries, unpaid domestic work in the household is typically performed by women, due to gender inequality and gender norms, which can result in high-stress levels in women attempting to balance unpaid work and paid employment. In poorer countries, this work is sometimes performed by children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unemployment in the United States</span> Explanation of unemployment in the United States, presently and historically

Unemployment in the United States discusses the causes and measures of U.S. unemployment and strategies for reducing it. Job creation and unemployment are affected by factors such as economic conditions, global competition, education, automation, and demographics. These factors can affect the number of workers, the duration of unemployment, and wage levels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martha Chen</span> American academic, scholar and social worker

Martha Alter Chen is an American academic, scholar and social worker, who is presently a lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and senior advisor of the global research-policy-action network WIEGO and a member of the Advisory Board of the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER). Martha is a development practitioner and scholar who has worked with the working poor in India, South Asia, and around the world. Her areas of specialization are employment, poverty alleviation, informal economy, and gender. She lived in Bangladesh working with BRAC, one of the world's largest non-governmental organizations, and in India, as field representative of Oxfam America for India and Bangladesh for 15 years.

The social and economic changes in Thailand in the past decades have important implications for the quality and quantity of labor. The economic and non-economic roles of women in Thailand can be traced back several hundred years in Thai history, when there were traditional discriminatory attitudes towards women in the culture of Thailand. The transformation of Thailand's social and economic structure since the 1960s led to the gender disparities in Thai society. Recently, the position of Thai women in the labor market has improved a lot in comparison to the past as a result of modernization. In 2011, Thailand ranked 69th out of 143 countries in the Gender Inequality Index. In labor economics, gender inequality is widely discussed in terms of concepts of sex segregation and employment discrimination. Thai government and non-governmental organizations have put forth many policies and programs to address gender inequalities in the last few decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Female labor force in the Muslim world</span> Involvement of Muslim women in labor

Female participation and advancement in majority Muslim countries, or nations in which more than 50% of the population identifies as an adherent of the Islamic faith, have traditionally been areas of controversy. Several Western nations, such as the United States and Western Europe, have criticised majority Muslim nations for the lack of involvement and opportunity for women in the private sector.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in Bulgaria</span>

Women in Bulgaria refers to women who live in and are from Bulgaria. Women's position in Bulgarian society has been influenced by a variety of cultures and ideologies, including the Byzantine and Ottoman cultures, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, communist ideology, and contemporary globalized Western values.

Statistics on unemployment in India had traditionally been collected, compiled and disseminated once every ten years by the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MLE), primarily from sample studies conducted by the National Sample Survey Office. Other than these 5-year sample studies, India had historically not collected monthly, quarterly or yearly nationwide employment and unemployment statistics on a routine basis. In 2016, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a non-governmental entity based in Mumbai, started sampling and publishing monthly unemployment in India statistics. Despite having one of the longest working hours, India has one of the lowest workforce productivity levels in the world. Economists often say that due to structural economic problems, India is experiencing jobless economic growth.

Gender pay gap in India refers to the difference in earnings between women and men in the paid employment and the labor market. For the year 2013, the gender pay gap in India was estimated to be 24.81%. Further, while analyzing the level of female participation in the economy, this report slots India as one of the bottom 10 countries on its list. Thus, in addition to unequal pay, there is also unequal representation, because while women constitute almost half the Indian population, their representation in the work force amounts to only about one-fourth of the total.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Labour in Nepal</span> Overview of workforce in Nepal, workers rights, labour laws and challenges

Nepal has a labour force of 16.8 million workers, the 37th largest in the world as of 2017. Although agriculture makes up only about 28 per cent of Nepal's GDP, it employs more than two-thirds of the workforce. Millions of men work as unskilled labourers in foreign countries, leaving the household, agriculture, and raising of children to women alone. Most of the working-age women are employed in the agricultural sector, contributions to which are usually ignored or undervalued in official statistics. Few women who are employed in the formal sectors face discrimination and significant wage gap. Almost half of all children are economically active, half of which are child labourers. Millions of people, men, women and children of both sexes, are employed as bonded labourers, in slavery-like conditions. Trade unions have played a significant role in bringing about better working conditions and workers' rights, both at the company level and the national government level. Worker-friendly labour laws, endorsed by the labour unions as well as business owners, provide a framework for better working conditions and secure future for the employees, but their implementation is severely lacking in practice. Among the highly educated, there is a significant brain-drain, posing a significant hurdle in fulfilling the demand for skilled workforce in the country.

References

  1. ↑ Blanchard, O., 2020. Macroeconomics, Global Edition, 8th ed., pag. 154.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Seager, Joni. 2008. The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World. 4th ed. New York: Penguin Books. Part 5
  3. ↑ Larsson, Allan. "Empowerment of the Poor in Informal Employment." Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (Jan. 2006): 1–10. Print
  4. ↑ Seager, Joni. 2008. The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World. 4th ed. New York: Penguin Books. Part 5.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Chen, Martha, Joann Vanek, Francie Lund, James Heintz with Renana Jhabvala, and Christine Bonner. 2005. "Employment, Gender, and Poverty," in Progress of the World's Women, pp. 36–57. New York: United Nations Development Fund for Women
  6. 1 2 3 Chen, Martha Alter. "Women in the Informal Sector: A Global Picture, The Global Movement" (PDF). World Bank: 1–10. World Bank Info. Web. 5 Apr. 2011. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2014-11-13. Retrieved 2015-03-24.
  7. ↑ Charmes, Jacques. "Informal Sector, Poverty and Gender: A Review of Empirical Evidence." World Development Report (Feb. 2000): 1–9. Centre of Economics and Ethics. Web. 5 Apr. 2011. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2010-12-25. Retrieved 2015-03-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link).
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Seizing the opportunities of the African Continental Free Trade Area for the economic empowerment of women in agriculture. Accra: FAO. 2021. doi:10.4060/cb6966en. ISBN   978-92-5-135021-8. S2CID   244712893.
  9. 1 2 Bonnet, Vanek & Chen, 2019
  10. 1 2 Chen, Martha, Joann Vanek, Francie Lund, James Heintz with Renana Jhabvala, and Christine Bonner. 2005. "Employment, Gender, and Poverty," in Progress of the World's Women, pp. 36–57. New York: United Nations Development Fund for Women.
  11. ↑ UNDP, 2020
  12. ↑ Watts, Joseph (11 February 2014). "Women make up two thirds of workers on long-term sick leave". London Evening Standard . p. 10.
  13. ↑ Freeman, Richard (2010-03-05). "What Really Ails Europe (and America): The Doubling of the Global Workforce". The Globalist. Retrieved 2013-07-06.
  14. 1 2 World Economic Outlook Chapter 5: The Globalization of Labor (PDF). International Monetary Fund. 2007. ISBN   978-0511760594.
  15. ↑ Dobbs, Richard; Barton, Dominic; Madgavkar, Anu; Labaye, Eric; Manyika, James; Roxburgh, Charles; Lund, Susan; Madhav, Siddarth (June 2012). "The world at work: Jobs, pay and skills for 3.5 billion people". McKinsey Global Institute. Archived from the original on April 9, 2013.
  16. ↑ Warf, Barney, ed. (2010). "New International Division of Labor". Encyclopedia of Geography. Sage Pubs. ISBN   978-1412956970.
  17. ↑ Sherif, Mostafa Hashem (2006). Managing Projects in Telecommunication Service. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN   0470047674. (chapter) COMMUNICATION AND OUTSOURCING ... Roche, 1998

Sources

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