Workforce

Workforce refers to the labor pool in employment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic region like a city, state, or country. Within a company, its value can be labeled as its "Workforce in Place". The workforce of a country includes both the employed and the unemployed. The labor force participation rate, LFPR (or economic activity rate, EAR), is the ratio between the labor force and the overall size of their cohort (national population of the same age range). The term generally excludes the employers or management, and can imply those involved in manual labor. It may also mean all those who are available for work.

Workforce by sector

The global workforce is broken down into three sectors: primary, secondary, and tertiary.

• Primary sector: This sector of a nation's economy includes agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, quarrying, and the extraction of minerals. It may be divided into two categories: genetic industry, including the production of raw materials that may be increased by human intervention in the production process; and extractive industry, including the production of exhaustible raw materials that cannot be augmented through cultivation.

• Secondary sector: This sector, also known as the industrial sector, includes industries that produce a finished, usable product or are involved in construction. This sector generally takes the output of the primary sector and manufactures finished goods or where they are suitable for use by other businesses, for export, or sale to domestic consumers. This sector is often divided into light industry and heavy industry. Many of these industries consume large amounts of energy and require factories and machinery to convert the raw materials into goods and products. They also produce waste materials and waste heat that may cause environmental problems or cause pollution.

• Tertiary sector: This sector, also known as the service sector, involves the provision of services to businesses as well as final consumers. Services may involve the transport, distribution, and sale of goods from producer to a consumer as may happen in wholesaling and retailing, or may involve the provision of a service, such as in pest control or entertainment. The goods may be transformed in the process of providing the service, as happens in the restaurant industry.

See also

• Employment-to-population ratio
• Female labor force in the Muslim world
• Informal sector
• List of countries by labor force
• Proletariat
• Unemployment

External links

• Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S.)
• International Labour Organization

Workforce Resources
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