Workforce

In macroeconomics, the labor force is the sum

of those either working (i.e., the employed) or
looking for work (i.e., the unemployed):

Labour force participation rate

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

The sum of the labor force and out of the labor 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 labor force). Stated otherwise, the noninstitutional civilian population is the total population minus
people that could not work (children, elders, soldiers, incarcerated). The noninstitutional civilian population
is the number of people potentially available for civilian employment.

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

Instead, within a company, its value can be labelled as its "Workforce in Place".

Formal and informal

Formal labour is any sort of employment that is structured and paid in a formal way.[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.[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 Workers leaving the Tampella factory
is expanding globally, most significantly in developing countries. [6] in Tampere, Finland in 1909
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

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 This is a chart showing employed
employed in the informal sector.[2] civilians by occupation and sex in
2007 in the US
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
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.

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 Two farm workers cleaning and
as valley fever. To address these environmental concerns, immigration picking at an onion field, location
challenges and marginal working conditions, many labor rights, unknown.
economic justice and environmental justice movements have been
organized or supported
by farmworkers.

Paid and
unpaid

Sudanese farmer reviews cantaloupe

production, south of Khartoum
Farm workers on a field near Mount
Williamson in Inyo County, California.
Paid and unpaid work are also closely related with formal and This photograph is by Ansel Adams.
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 A farm man at work
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 labor 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 labor 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 labor 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]

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 Convergys call center in Baguio, the
Philippines (example of a third party
Asia (such as China, Vietnam, and India), Mexico and
outsourcing firm)
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
Collective bargaining – Negotiations
between employers and a group of
employees
Contingent workforce – Non-permanent
type of employment
Critique of work – Criticism of work as such
Designation of workers by collar color –
Employment classification
Division of labour – Separation of tasks in
any system so that participants may
specialise
Employment-to-population ratio –
Statistical ratio; proportion of a working
age population that is employed
Female labor force in the Muslim world –
Involvement of Muslim women in labor
Feminisation of poverty – Poverty
phenomena that most frequently affect
women
Human capital – Economics concept
involving knowledge, skills, and training
Labour economics – Study of the markets
for wage labour
List of countries by labor force
List of countries by sector composition of
the labor force
Proletariat – Class of wage-earners
Unemployment – People without work and
actively seeking work
Women in the workforce – All women who
perform some kind of job
Working class – Social class composed of
those employed in lower-tier jobs

References
1. Blanchard, O., 2020. Macroeconomics, Global Edition, 8th ed., pag. 154.
 2. 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. 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. Chen, Martha Alter. "Women in the Informal Sector: A Global Picture, The Global Movement"
(http://info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/library/76309/dc2002/proceedings/pdfpaper/module6m
c.pdf) (PDF). World Bank: 1–10. World Bank Info. Web. 5 Apr. 2011. Archived (https://web.arc
hive.org/web/20141113204603/http://info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/library/76309/dc2002/pr
oceedings/pdfpaper/module6mc.pdf) (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" (http://www.wiego.org/papers/charmes3.pdf) (PDF). Archived (https://
web.archive.org/web/20101225122754/http://wiego.org/papers/charmes3.pdf) (PDF) from
the original on 2010-12-25. Retrieved 2015-03-24..
8. Seizing the opportunities of the African Continental Free Trade Area for the economic
empowerment of women in agriculture (https://doi.org/10.4060/cb6966en). Accra: FAO. 2021.
doi:10.4060/cb6966en (https://doi.org/10.4060%2Fcb6966en). ISBN 978-92-5-135021-8.
S2CID 244712893 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:244712893).
9. Bonnet, Vanek & Chen, 2019
10. 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" (http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=4542). The
Globalist. Retrieved 2013-07-06.
14. World Economic Outlook Chapter 5: The Globalization of Labor (http://www.imf.org/external/
Pubs/FT/WEO/2007/01/pdf/c5.pdf) (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" (http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/employment_and_gr
owth/the_world_at_work). McKinsey Global Institute. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal
requires |journal= (help)
16. Warf, Barney, ed. (2010). "New International Division of Labor". Encyclopedia of Geography
(http://knowledge.sagepub.com/view/geography/n814.xml). Sage Pubs. ISBN 978-
1412956970.
17. Sherif, Mostafa Hashem (2006). Managing Projects in Telecommunication Service (https://bo
oks.google.com/books?isbn=0470047674). ISBN 0470047674. "(chapter)
COMMUNICATION AND OUTSOURCING ... Roche, 1998"
Sources
This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 (license
statement/permission (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seizing_the_opportunities_of_the_African_
Continental_Free_Trade_Area_for_the_economic_empowerment_of_women_in_agriculture.pdf)). Text
taken from Seizing the opportunities of the African Continental Free Trade Area for the economic
empowerment of women in agriculture​(https://doi.org/10.4060/cb6966en), FAO, FAO.

External links
Media related to Workforce at Wikimedia Commons
About the difference, in English, between the use/meaning of workforce/work force and
labor/labour/labo(u)r pool (http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=851139)

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