Labour Surplus

A Labour Surplus is an economic surplus of a labor population.

• AKA: Labor Surplus.
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Labour Shortage.
• See: Economic Surplus, Supply (Economics), Excess Supply, Birth Dearth, Workforce Aging, Cost of Living, Occupational Stress.

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References

2023

• (Wikipedia, 2023) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/shortage#Labour_shortage Retrieved:2023-1-16.
  • In its narrowest definition, a labour shortage is an economic condition in which employers believe there are insufficient qualified candidates (employees) to fill the marketplace demands for employment at a wage that is mostly employer-determined. Such a condition is sometimes referred to by economists as "an insufficiency in the labour force." An ageing population and a contracting workforce and a birth dearth may curb U.S. economic expansion for several decades, for example. In a wider definition, a widespread domestic labour shortage is caused by excessively low salaries (relative to the domestic cost of living) and adverse working conditions (excessive workload and working hours) in low-wage industries (hospitality and leisure, education, health care, rail transportation, aviation, retail, manufacturing, food, elderly care), which collectively lead to occupational burnout and attrition of existing workers, insufficent incentives to attract the inflow supply of domestic workers (through a voluntary exchange), short-staffing at workplaces and further exacerbation (positive feedback) of staff shortages. Labour shortages occur broadly across multiple industries within a rapidly expanding economy, whilst labour shortages often occur within specific industries (which generally offer low salaries) even during economic periods of high unemployment. In response to domestic labour shortages, business associations such as chambers of commerce would generally lobby to governments for an increase of the inward immigration of foreign workers from countries which are less developed and have lower salaries. In addition, business associations have campaigned for greater state provision of child care, which would enable more women to re-enter the labour workforce. However, as labour shortages in the relevant low-wage industries are often widespread globally throughout many countries in the world, immigration would only partially address the chronic labour shortages in the relevant low-wage industries in developed countries (whilst simultaneously discouraging local labour from entering the relevant industries) and in turn cause greater labour shortages in developing countries.

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