Chap 30 Flashcards
Employment
being involved in a productive activity for which a payment is received
Unemployment
being without a job while willing and able to work
Changes in the patterns of employment
- Industrial structure
- Proportion of women in employment
- Proportion of workers in the private and public sectors
- Full-time and part-time work
- Employed and self-employed
- Informal and formal economies
- High and low-quality employment
- Flexible employment
Informal and formal economies difference
Informal..
- Do not have the same access to the social security benefits, employment protection and rights as workers in the formal economy.
- Does not include unions and so the workers cannot bargain collectively to improve their conditions.
- Lower productivity, lower levels of training and lower wages than workers in the formal economy.
Flexible labour force
a labour force is one which adjusts quickly and smoothly to changes in market conditions
Forms of flexibility in labour force
- Number of workers employed (numerical flexibility)
- Temporal flexibility (the ability to change the number of hours people work)
- Locational flexibility (the ability to change the location where workers work)
- Functional flexibility (the ability to change the tasks workers perform)
- Wage flexibility (the ability to raise or lower wages).
Does a rise in employment reduce unemployment?
Yes, if it is the unemployed who fill at least some of the extra jobs
No, if the labour force grows faster than the number of jobs available. It is also possible for unemployment to fall without an increase in employment.
Some unemployed people may reach retirement age, some may go into full-time education, some may emigrate, while some may just stop searching for work.
Economically active
those in the labour force, both the employed and the unemployed
Economically inactive
those not in the labour force (retired early, those in higher education, homemakers and the long-term sick)
Labour market participation rate
the proportion of the working-age population who are in the labour force.
Factors that influence the labour market participation rate
- The wages on offer
- Social attitudes to working women
- Provision for the care of children and the elderly
- Social attitudes and provision for the disabled to work
- The proportion of school leavers who go into higher education
Define Claimant count
a measure of unemployment which counts as unemployed those in receipt of unemployment benefits.
Major ways of measuring unemployment are to:
- count those in receipt of unemployment-related benefits and
- carry out labour force surveys
Unemployment costs influenced by
the extent of the unemployment
the duration of the unemployment
the cause of the unemployment.
Claimant count A&D
A:
1. relatively cheap and quick, as the information is gathered anyway by the government to know the amount paid out in benefit and its recipients.
D:
1. tends to understate unemployment
2. people who are actually working fraudulently claim benefits