Workforce

Workforce
See also
Unemployment Factor of production Microeconomics Economic situation Economics Need Employment Arthur Okun Knowledge capital

Workforce, also called labor supply is the number of people who are economically active. These are people of working age (in Poland it is the age range of 18-64 for women and 18-69 for men) who are able to work and ready to take it on typical conditions for that. The composition of this group includes both the employed and the unemployed.

The remaining group are people of working age but inactive and not seeking work.

Workforce is a resource of people of working age, able to work and ready to take on typical conditions existing in the economy. This definition shows that the it is a component of the total number of people of working age in the economy.

Workforce (manpower, labor resources) are working population, which includes employed (including self-employed, men doing military and government work, participants in professional training programs) and unemployed. In this sense, the workforce is one of the traditional factors of production.

If we subtract the number of unemployed to the total number of persons who fall into the workforce, we get the level of employment.

Origins of the concept

The concept of the workforce was coined in Marxist literature. Karl Marx argued that human in nature is to transform of environment by the process of transformation called work. And the ability to transformation of nature it called the workforce (labor force).

The increase in the number of people ready to work (workforce) is an important source of GDP growth.

References

• Johnston, W. B., & Packer, A. E. (1987). Workforce 2000: Work and workers for the twenty-first century. DIANE Publishing.