Chapter 9 SECTION 12 Labor Market Trends Organized

Chapter 9 SECTION 1&2 Labor Market Trends Organized Labor

Labor Force • In economics, the people in the labor force are the suppliers of labor. The labor force is all the nonmilitary people who are officially employed or unemployed. [1] In 2005, the worldwide labor force was over 3 billion people. [2]

Labor Force • Normally, the labour force of a country (or other geographic entity) consists of everyone of working age (typically above a certain age (around 14 to 16) and below retirement (around 65) who are participating workers, that is people actively employed or seeking employment.

FYI • People not counted include students, retired people, stay-at-home parents, people in prisons or similar institutions, people employed in jobs or professions with unreported income, as well as discouraged workers who cannot find work.

FYI • In the United States, the labor force is defined as people 16 years old or older who are employed or looking for work. Child labor laws in the United States forbid employing people under 18 in hazardous jobs.

white-collar worker • The term white-collar worker refers to a salaried professional or an educated worker who performs semi-professional office, administrative, and sales coordination tasks,

blue-collar worker • A blue-collar worker is a member of the working class who typically performs manual labor and earns an hourly wage. Blue-collar workers are distinguished from those in the service sector and from whitecollar workers, whose jobs are not considered manual labor.

FYI • as opposed to a blue-collar worker, whose job requires manual labor. "White-collar work" is an informal term, defined in contrast to "blue-collar work

Blue-collar work • Blue-collar work may be skilled or unskilled, and may involve manufacturing, mining, building and construction trades, mechanical work, maintenance, repair and operations maintenance or technical installations.

FYI • The white-collar worker, by contrast, performs non-manual labor often in an office; and the service industry worker performs labor involving customer interaction, entertainment, retail and outside sales, and the like.

SERVICE WORKER • Employee who works in the Service Sector of the economy. • RETAIL • MC D • STARBUCKS • GEEK REPAIR • INCOME TAX

FYI • As manufacturing employment declines in the United States, the service sector and its workers have grown very rapidly. The service worker is the least represented by unions.

SERVICE WORKER • Form of business providing various types of labor services in a wide variety of business sectors. For example, a lawn service and maid service provide consumers with lawn mowing and housekeeping services.

SERVICE SECTOR • Sector of the economy where service businesses provide employment and contributions to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The service sector employs over 80% of the American work force. .

FACTORS AFFECTING WAGES • Consumer Price Indexes (CPI) Monthly data on changes in the prices paid by urban consumers for a representative basket of goods and services. Producer Price Indexes Monthly data on changes in the selling prices received by domestic producers of goods and services.

FYI • Import/Export Price Indexes Monthly data on changes in the prices of imported and exported nonmilitary goods traded between the U. S. and the rest of the world.

FYI • Consumer Expenditure Survey Data on the buying habits of American consumers, by socioeconomic characteristics. • UNEPLOYMENT • EDUCATION • SUPPLY/ DEMAND

> AUTOMATION & TECNOLOGY • Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies reducing the need for human intervention. [1] In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization.

FYI • Whereas mechanization provided human operators with machinery to assist them with the muscular requirements of work, automation greatly reduces the need for human sensory and mental requirements as well. Automation plays an increasingly important role in the world economy and in daily experience.

advantage of automation • The main advantage of automation are: • Replacing human operators in tasks that involve hard physical or monotonous work.

FYI • Replacing humans in tasks that should be done in dangerous environments (i. e. fire, space, volcanoes, nuclear facilities, underwater, etc)

FYI • Making tasks that are beyond the human capabilities such as handling too heavy loads, too large objects, too hot or too cold substances or the requirement to make things too fast or too slow.

advantage of automation • Economy improvement. Sometimes and some kinds of automation implies improves in economy of enterprises, society or most of humankind.

FYI • For example, when an enterprise that has invested in automation technology recovers its investment; when a state or country increases its income due to automation like Germany or Japan in the 20 th Century or when the humankind can use the internet which in turn use satellites and other automated engines.

main disadvantages of automation are: • Technology limits. Current technology is unable to automate all the desired tasks.

FYI • Unpredictable development costs. The research and development cost of automating a process is difficult to predict accurately beforehand. Since this cost can have a large impact on profitability, it's possible to finish automating a process only to discover that there's no economic advantage in doing so.

FYI • Initial costs are relatively high. The automation of a new product required a huge initial investment in comparison with the unit cost of the product, although the cost of automation is spread in many product batches. The automation of a plant required a great initial investment too, although this cost is spread in the products to be produced.

main disadvantages of automation are: • UNEMPLOYMENT • At first glance, automation might appear to devalue labor through its replacement with less-expensive machines; however, the overall effect of this on the workforce as a whole remains unclear. citation needed]

FYI • Today automation of the workforce is quite advanced, and continues to advance increasingly more rapidly throughout the world and is encroaching on ever more skilled jobs, yet during the same period the general well-being and quality of life of most people in the world (where political factors have not muddied the picture) have improved dramatically. What role automation has played in these changes has not been well studied.