Labor force potential
According to the definition of the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), the labor force potential as a measure of the labor supply comprises the sum of the employed , the unemployed and the silent reserve . According to the Gabler economic lexicon , the labor force potential is measured in terms of the number of people of working age and is a measure of the maximum labor supply available in Germany.
The term labor force refers to more people than the term labor force . The definition set for the latter consists of the employed and the unemployed. The term labor force potential , however, also takes the hidden reserve into account. Since the IAB, unlike the Gabler-Lexikon, does not include all economically active persons who are neither employed nor registered as unemployed in the hidden reserve, but only those who would be willing to take up employment under more favorable labor market conditions, the IAB must, but not According to the Gabler economic lexion, the size of the hidden reserve can be estimated, as the number of those willing to work is not recorded in official statistics, in contrast to the number of those able to work.
definition
The usual recording of employment and unemployment does not give a complete picture of the labor market, because in the economic downturn some of those who lose their jobs disappear from the statistics. Even though they are no longer employed, this part does not appear in the unemployment statistics. Conversely, when the economy is up, some of the new jobs are taken by people who were not previously registered as unemployed. Only the recording of all movements on the labor market enables labor market policy to react appropriately.
The labor force potential of an economy is naturally limited by the number of the population of working age. However, the number of people in employment can be influenced by policy, and that is
- by shortening school hours and thus extending the average working life,
- by increasing the statutory retirement age (which at the same time redefines the number of employable people by re-setting the corresponding upper age limit ),
- by creating further incentives for the individual employee to leave work at a later date ,
- by promoting the influx of qualified specialists from abroad ( labor migration ; this also increases the labor force potential) and
- through incentives to increase the female participation rate ; specifically, z. For example, the willingness to take up gainful employment can be promoted by creating childcare options.
Situation in the Federal Republic of Germany
From 1960 to 2008 the potential of the labor force grew from 26.3 million to 44.4 million people (+ 69%). Decisive factors for growth were immigration , German reunification and the increasing propensity of women to work.
In contrast, the volume of total work ( work volume ) only increased by 2.3% during this period. The unequal development of the labor force potential and the volume of work was compensated for between 1960 and 1973 by a reduction in the agreed working hours of 4 hours a week. Thereafter, the agreed reduction in working hours was increasingly replaced by part-time work. As a result, the average weekly working time of all full-time and part-time employees in 2007 was only 30.31 hours, so that in 2007 around 7.2 million people were affected by underemployment .
At the beginning of 2020, the media reported that the workforce in Germany would “only increase by a few tens of thousands” in 2020 and then “inevitably shrink” as soon as the baby boomers retired. German companies are faced with the task of “still generating more with fewer people”; At the same time, the demands placed on workers would become more demanding due to the greater complexity of the work.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Labor force potential . Gabler-Wirtschaftslexikon
- ^ IAB Compendium Labor Market and Occupational Research, Contribution 250, pp. 79 ff.
- ↑ Johann Fuchs: Labor potential and hidden reserve - conception and calculation method, in: Gerhard Kleinhenz (Hrsg.) (2002): IAB-Kompendium Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung. Contributions to labor market and occupational research, Contribution AB 250, pp. 79–94.
- ^ Workingtime developments 2007 - European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Dublin 2008
- ↑ Jörg Melz, Lars Niggemeyer: 7 million without work, in: Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, 11/2007; IAB short report 04/2009; Federal Statistical Office 2007 - Microcensus
- ↑ Florian Diekmann: Demography 2020: Germany can no longer afford bad work. In: Spiegel online. January 2, 2020, accessed January 6, 2020 .