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The concept of employment encompasses a variety of productive activities but has narrower connotations in the fields of law, statistics and economics.  
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'''[[employment (economics)|Employment]]''' is an activity devoted to the production of [[goods (economics)|goods]] and [[services (economics)|services]] that can also provide an opportunity for social participation and  a means of gaining psychological satisfaction. It is an essential component of the [[economic system]], in which it is regulated by the [[labour market]] and the interactions of that [[market (economics)|market]] with the markets for goods and services. Its availability is a matter of social and political importance because of the loss of [[welfare (economics)|welfare]] that  is experienced by those that experience [[unemployment]].


==Definitions==
==Terminology==
The term employment is used colloquially to refer to any  human activity devoted to the production of goods and services. In legal terms it has the narrower meaning of a contractual arrangement that gives an employer some measure of control over the activities of an employee, and  in national statistics it includes self-employment but excludes unpaid activities and activities in the “shadow economy” that are concealed from the authorities<ref> For estimates of the magnitude of the shadow economy, see that paragraph in the article on [[gross domestic product]]</ref>.
The term [[labour force]] refers to those members  of the population of working age who are available for work<br>
The [[participation rate]] is equal to the [[labour force]] as a percentage of the population of working age.<br>
The term [[unemployment]] is confined to those who are actively seeking work.
A [[discouraged worker]] is one who is not trying to find work because he believes that no acceptable work is available to him.<br>
The term "voluntary" (or "classical") [[unemployment]] refers to unemployment caused by refusal to accept ruling pay rates.<br>
The term "involuntary" (or "Keynesian" unemployment refers to unemployment caused by a deficiency of demand.<br>
[[Full employment]] has been deemed to occur when the number of job [[vacancy (economics)|vacancies]] exceeds the number unemployed.<br>
"The [[labour market]]" is a construct that is used to represent the  aggregate effect of the interaction of  supply of and  demand in each of a large number of separate labour markets. <br>


==Employment legislation==
==The labour markets==
Employment legislation imposes statutory requirements upon the relations between employers and employees  concerning matters including working hourshealth and safety at work, minimum wage rates, dismissal restrictions and redundancy payments.  
===Overview===
The application of the term [[market (economics)|market]]  to dealings between employers and employees is justified by the fact that those dealings serve to reconcile supply with demand and to determine the price that is paid. But, unlike the situation in financial and commodity markets, there is usually little coordination between the prices paid for labour in different places. In other markets, the ruling prices are usually widely known, but an employee is frequently unaware of what other employera are paying, or what his employer is paying to others. In most markets the items traded are well defined  but human qualities are less easy to pin down. Also, employment has more important psychological and social effects, is more closely regulated, and is affected more by institutional factors.


===Labour market institutions===


==Employment statistics==
====Market structure====
What is referred to as the labour market is not  a single coordinated market but a structure made up of  markets that are separated by limitations upon labour movement and  [[market interaction]].  One form of separation arises from differences in the implied contract between employer and employee. In what are termed  "primary" labour markets, according to the "dual labour market hypothesis<ref>[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=968626 William T. Dickens and Kevin Lang: ''A Test of Dual Labor Market Theory'', NBER Working Paper No. W1314, October 1985]</ref>,  there is  an implicit agreement that employment is to continue for a number of years, and often the expectation that continuing good performance by an employee will be rewarded by a succession of pay increases. Employment in  "secondary" labour markets, on the other hand, tends to be  temporary or short-term, with no expectation of pay increases. Markets may also be separated by  differences of skill, technology  or  occupational qualification. Locational separation may or may not limit market interaction: at one extreme interaction  is confined to travel-to-work areas, and at the other it can be  global. National  labour market structures tend to change with changes in the [[outsourcing]] of [[intermediate product]]s and with the growth of [[International economics#Globalisation| globalisation]]<ref>[http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2007/01/pdf/c5.pdf ''The Globalization of Labor'',  Chapter 5,  World Economic Outlook, International Monetary Fund, 2007]</ref>.


==Employment economics==
====Working conditions====
''(data is from the United Nations International Labour Organisation<ref>[http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/condtrav/pdf/work_laws.pdf Eléonore Evain: ''Working Conditions Laws 2006-2007'', International Labour Office, 2008]</ref>.)''
 
Minimum wages are set in nearly every country in the world. In almost a fifth, (including most industrialised countries) they are set at over $1,000 a month; in over  a third (including most Central and East European countries  and two thirds of Latin American countries)  at between $100 and $500 a month:  in just under a third (including most Asian countries) at $30 to $99, and around $30 a month in most African countries. In most cases the rates are by the government following recommendations by independent committees.
 
Maximum working hours of 40 hours a week apply in the United States,  in most other industrialised countries, in most Central and East European countries and in nearly half of African countries (but there are lower limits in France and Belgium at 38 hours and 35 hours respectively). A 48-hour limit predominates in Asia and Latin American countries. There are no national limits in Australia, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, India or Pakistan. Most countries' employment  laws  also place an upper limit on overtime hours beyond the weekly hours limit.
 
====Termination of employment====
<!--
Termination of Employment Convention, 1982 http://www.ilo.org/global/What_we_do/InternationalLabourStandards/Subjects/Employmentsecurity/lang--en/index.htm
 
The instrument sets forth thhe principle that the employment of a worker should not be terminated unless there is a valid reason for such termination connected with the worker's capacity or conduct or based on the operational requirements of the undertaking, establishment or service. Reasons for dismissal which shall be not be considered valid include those based on union membership or participation in union activities, filing of a complaint against an employer, race, colour, sex, marital status, family responsibilities, pregnancy, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin, temporary absence due to illness, or absence from work during maternity leave. If an individual worker is dismissed, he or she shall have the right to defend him or herself against any allegations. In cases of collective dismissals, governments should aim at encouraging employers to consult workers' representatives and to develop alternatives to mass lay-offs (such a hiring freezes or working time reductions). The convention also covers matters related to severance pay, period of notice, appeal procedures against dismissal, and unemployment insurance, and advance warning to be given to authorities in cases of mass dismissal
-->
====Income protection====
 
====Employment taxes====
 
===Labour market statistics===
 
National employment statistics <ref>[http://laborsta.ilo.org/ ''LABORSTA'', International Labour Organization database of national economic statistics]</ref>  are compiled from employer and household surveys <ref>[http://www.ilo.org/dyn/lfsurvey/lfsurvey.home, Database of Labour Force Surveys, International Labour Organization 2008]</ref>, according to internationally-agreed principles <ref>[http://www.ilo.org/global/What_we_do/Statistics/standards/lang--en/index.htm ''Standards and Guidelines'' for economic statistics, ]</ref>, but differing in practice from country to country, making comparisons hazardous. The composition of the labour force is normally recorded by sex, industry and occupation <ref>[http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/stat/isco/index.htm International Standard Classification of Occupations]</ref>.
 
==Social aspects of employment==
 
==Labour market economics==
===Overview===
The labour market occupies a special place in the interactive network of markets that make up an economy,  and it has special implications for  the welfare of its people.  It affects productive and economic efficiency by its allocation of human resources among alternative activities, and it influences the  way that people choose between consumption and leisure. 
 
Most labour markets differ significantly from the perfect markets of economic theory. The [[labour force]] is often far from homogeneous,  the information available to the parties is usually far from complete, and some degree of market power is often present. The  [[Supply and demand#The Auctioneer analogy|Walrassian auctioneer]]  is not an apt analogy for the market process,  and the deal that is arrived at has the characteristics of an [[incomplete contract]], in that the responsibilities of employer and employee are not exhaustively specified.  For employment that requires training, the existence of an  interval between a decision to supply and its implementation introduces additional uncertainties. Those departures from the ideal model affect the process by which the supply of labour is reconciled with its demand.
 
===The supply of labour===
The motive to seek employment may be expected to be determined by  the wage rate on offer and upon personal  preferences as between employment and other activities. (In this context the alternative to employment  is referred to as “leisure”,  although in fact it includes childcare, housework and voluntary work).  Two effects are at work. On the one hand,  an increase in the income that is offered can  increase the attractiveness of employment as the result of the [[substitution effect]]  (so called because it induces a substitution  in which  leisure is sacrificed for the sake of getting employment).  On the other hand,    additional income tends to motivate an increase in  the consumption of  leisure (as well as of other benefits) , creating what is termed an [[income effect]].  Eventually, as income increases,  the income effect  can be expected to  outweigh the substitution effect,  so that  further income increases reduce the motive to seek employment
 
The  size of the [[labour force]] of a closed  economy is affected by the age structure of the population and its [[participation rate]],  and the participation rate is affected in turn by the income and substitution effects of wage rate changes and by  fertility rates and life expectancy changes. <ref>[http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/pgda/Pop%20Aging%20Workshop/Abstracts/Bloom_Canning_Demographic%20Change%20and%20Labor%20Supply.pdf  . David Bloom,  David Canning,  Günther Fink and  Jocelyn. Finlay :  ''Demographic Change, Institutional Settings and the Labor Supply'' , Harvard UP 2007]</ref>. In open economies, migration may also have a significant  influence. Thus the supply of labour  may  be expected, first to increase with each increase in the wage rate offered, but eventually to fall in response to further increases.
 
===The demand for labour===
The demand for labour  derives solely  from the demand for  the products on which it can be employed.  The demand for a particular skill by a hypothetical sole employer of that skill  would  depend,  not only upon the demand for the product on which it is to be employed, but also upon substitutes for that  skill such as  investment in automation. Such an employer may be expected to  increase  its employment  provided that the net  cost of doing so would be  less than the consequent increase in revenue.  Since increases in  the revenue from the firm’s product  may be expected to depend upon  its cost of production,  the firm’s demand for the skill may be expect to rise with reduction in the cost of employing it,  and vice versa.  (In most industries, that effect  may also be a consequence of  the short-term operation of the [[law of diminishing returns]].)  The total demand for that skill by a  market of competing employers  at a given wage rate would be the sum  of the numbers that each would employ at that rate.  In  a competitive market,  each employer  may be expected  to take the going rate (as determined by the process of bringing supply into line with demand)  as given, and adjust employment accordingly.
 
===Unemployment===
Failure of the labour market to "clear" (ie to match supply with demand) can lead to losses of output and income  as  result of [[unemployment]]  or  of the misuse of skills.  It  happens when employers fail to find available skills,  and when would-be employees  fail to find available vacancies
(the temporary occurrence of which is said to  lead to “frictional unemployment”).    It also happens  when there are no  vacancies for an available skill because of  unanticipated changes of industry structure  (which can result in what is termed “structural unemployment”).  Unemployment  can also  be the  result,  according to [[Keynesian theory]],  from a deficiency  in  aggregate demand;  and,  according to classical theory,  from the maintenance of wage rates above the market – clearing level. The concept of the [[macroeconomics#The natural rate of unemployment|the natural rate of unemployment]] refers to the unemployment rate  that is characteristic of an economy whose growth rate is in line with its long-term trend. It is a characteristic that is held to  depend mainly  upon  the existence of institutions and practices that prevent the labour market from clearing by deterring employers from recruiting or reducing the incentives for the unemployed to seek employment. They include legislation imposing restrictions upon dismissal,  compensation payments for permitted redundancies,  restrictions upon working hours,  and income support payments to the unemployed;  and are collectively known  as "labour market rigidities", or as the absence of labour market [[price flexibility]].  As might be expected, the evidence suggests that  economies with flexible labour markets experience faster growth and a greater ability to recover from external shocks than those with more rigid labour markets <ref>[http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2001/02/10/000094946_01012705513486/Rendered/PDF/multi_page.pdf Alvara Forteza and Martin Rama: ''Labor Market Rigidity and the Success of Economic Reforms in More Than 100 Countries'', Policy Research Working Paper No WPS 2521, World Bank 2001]</ref>(although the investigation of those effects is hampered by the difficulty of measuring price flexibility)..
 
==Employment policy==
 
==References==
{{reflist}}
 
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Employment is an activity devoted to the production of goods and services that can also provide an opportunity for social participation and a means of gaining psychological satisfaction. It is an essential component of the economic system, in which it is regulated by the labour market and the interactions of that market with the markets for goods and services. Its availability is a matter of social and political importance because of the loss of welfare that is experienced by those that experience unemployment.

Terminology

The term labour force refers to those members of the population of working age who are available for work
The participation rate is equal to the labour force as a percentage of the population of working age.
The term unemployment is confined to those who are actively seeking work. A discouraged worker is one who is not trying to find work because he believes that no acceptable work is available to him.
The term "voluntary" (or "classical") unemployment refers to unemployment caused by refusal to accept ruling pay rates.
The term "involuntary" (or "Keynesian" unemployment refers to unemployment caused by a deficiency of demand.
Full employment has been deemed to occur when the number of job vacancies exceeds the number unemployed.
"The labour market" is a construct that is used to represent the aggregate effect of the interaction of supply of and demand in each of a large number of separate labour markets.

The labour markets

Overview

The application of the term market to dealings between employers and employees is justified by the fact that those dealings serve to reconcile supply with demand and to determine the price that is paid. But, unlike the situation in financial and commodity markets, there is usually little coordination between the prices paid for labour in different places. In other markets, the ruling prices are usually widely known, but an employee is frequently unaware of what other employera are paying, or what his employer is paying to others. In most markets the items traded are well defined but human qualities are less easy to pin down. Also, employment has more important psychological and social effects, is more closely regulated, and is affected more by institutional factors.

Labour market institutions

Market structure

What is referred to as the labour market is not a single coordinated market but a structure made up of markets that are separated by limitations upon labour movement and market interaction. One form of separation arises from differences in the implied contract between employer and employee. In what are termed "primary" labour markets, according to the "dual labour market hypothesis[1], there is an implicit agreement that employment is to continue for a number of years, and often the expectation that continuing good performance by an employee will be rewarded by a succession of pay increases. Employment in "secondary" labour markets, on the other hand, tends to be temporary or short-term, with no expectation of pay increases. Markets may also be separated by differences of skill, technology or occupational qualification. Locational separation may or may not limit market interaction: at one extreme interaction is confined to travel-to-work areas, and at the other it can be global. National labour market structures tend to change with changes in the outsourcing of intermediate products and with the growth of globalisation[2].

Working conditions

(data is from the United Nations International Labour Organisation[3].)

Minimum wages are set in nearly every country in the world. In almost a fifth, (including most industrialised countries) they are set at over $1,000 a month; in over a third (including most Central and East European countries and two thirds of Latin American countries) at between $100 and $500 a month: in just under a third (including most Asian countries) at $30 to $99, and around $30 a month in most African countries. In most cases the rates are by the government following recommendations by independent committees.

Maximum working hours of 40 hours a week apply in the United States, in most other industrialised countries, in most Central and East European countries and in nearly half of African countries (but there are lower limits in France and Belgium at 38 hours and 35 hours respectively). A 48-hour limit predominates in Asia and Latin American countries. There are no national limits in Australia, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, India or Pakistan. Most countries' employment laws also place an upper limit on overtime hours beyond the weekly hours limit.

Termination of employment

Income protection

Employment taxes

Labour market statistics

National employment statistics [4] are compiled from employer and household surveys [5], according to internationally-agreed principles [6], but differing in practice from country to country, making comparisons hazardous. The composition of the labour force is normally recorded by sex, industry and occupation [7].

Social aspects of employment

Labour market economics

Overview

The labour market occupies a special place in the interactive network of markets that make up an economy, and it has special implications for the welfare of its people. It affects productive and economic efficiency by its allocation of human resources among alternative activities, and it influences the way that people choose between consumption and leisure.

Most labour markets differ significantly from the perfect markets of economic theory. The labour force is often far from homogeneous, the information available to the parties is usually far from complete, and some degree of market power is often present. The Walrassian auctioneer is not an apt analogy for the market process, and the deal that is arrived at has the characteristics of an incomplete contract, in that the responsibilities of employer and employee are not exhaustively specified. For employment that requires training, the existence of an interval between a decision to supply and its implementation introduces additional uncertainties. Those departures from the ideal model affect the process by which the supply of labour is reconciled with its demand.

The supply of labour

The motive to seek employment may be expected to be determined by the wage rate on offer and upon personal preferences as between employment and other activities. (In this context the alternative to employment is referred to as “leisure”, although in fact it includes childcare, housework and voluntary work). Two effects are at work. On the one hand, an increase in the income that is offered can increase the attractiveness of employment as the result of the substitution effect (so called because it induces a substitution in which leisure is sacrificed for the sake of getting employment). On the other hand, additional income tends to motivate an increase in the consumption of leisure (as well as of other benefits) , creating what is termed an income effect. Eventually, as income increases, the income effect can be expected to outweigh the substitution effect, so that further income increases reduce the motive to seek employment

The size of the labour force of a closed economy is affected by the age structure of the population and its participation rate, and the participation rate is affected in turn by the income and substitution effects of wage rate changes and by fertility rates and life expectancy changes. [8]. In open economies, migration may also have a significant influence. Thus the supply of labour may be expected, first to increase with each increase in the wage rate offered, but eventually to fall in response to further increases.

The demand for labour

The demand for labour derives solely from the demand for the products on which it can be employed. The demand for a particular skill by a hypothetical sole employer of that skill would depend, not only upon the demand for the product on which it is to be employed, but also upon substitutes for that skill such as investment in automation. Such an employer may be expected to increase its employment provided that the net cost of doing so would be less than the consequent increase in revenue. Since increases in the revenue from the firm’s product may be expected to depend upon its cost of production, the firm’s demand for the skill may be expect to rise with reduction in the cost of employing it, and vice versa. (In most industries, that effect may also be a consequence of the short-term operation of the law of diminishing returns.) The total demand for that skill by a market of competing employers at a given wage rate would be the sum of the numbers that each would employ at that rate. In a competitive market, each employer may be expected to take the going rate (as determined by the process of bringing supply into line with demand) as given, and adjust employment accordingly.

Unemployment

Failure of the labour market to "clear" (ie to match supply with demand) can lead to losses of output and income as result of unemployment or of the misuse of skills. It happens when employers fail to find available skills, and when would-be employees fail to find available vacancies (the temporary occurrence of which is said to lead to “frictional unemployment”). It also happens when there are no vacancies for an available skill because of unanticipated changes of industry structure (which can result in what is termed “structural unemployment”). Unemployment can also be the result, according to Keynesian theory, from a deficiency in aggregate demand; and, according to classical theory, from the maintenance of wage rates above the market – clearing level. The concept of the the natural rate of unemployment refers to the unemployment rate that is characteristic of an economy whose growth rate is in line with its long-term trend. It is a characteristic that is held to depend mainly upon the existence of institutions and practices that prevent the labour market from clearing by deterring employers from recruiting or reducing the incentives for the unemployed to seek employment. They include legislation imposing restrictions upon dismissal, compensation payments for permitted redundancies, restrictions upon working hours, and income support payments to the unemployed; and are collectively known as "labour market rigidities", or as the absence of labour market price flexibility. As might be expected, the evidence suggests that economies with flexible labour markets experience faster growth and a greater ability to recover from external shocks than those with more rigid labour markets [9](although the investigation of those effects is hampered by the difficulty of measuring price flexibility)..

Employment policy

References

.