ECON 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Labour Force Survey, Informal Sector, Efficiency Wage

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Economics
• Course: ECON 105
• Professor: Brian Krauth

Document Summary

Main employment statistics come from the labour force survey (lfs) an ongoing monthly survey of about 50 000 households. These statistics cover the: civilian non-institutionalized adult (age 15+) population. Employed: spent some time in previous week working for pay. Unemployed: on temporary layoff or actively searching for work. Not in labour force: everyone else (cid:523)students, homemakers retirees, (cid:498)discouraged workers(cid:499)(cid:524) The labour force is defined as employed + unemployed. Labour force participation = labour force x 100% We use the unemployment rate as a measure of how difficult it is to find a job. Does not distinguish between short-term and long-term unemployment long-term. Ignores underemployment unemployment seems to be much worse: long-term unemployment costs more. Some firms interpret long-term unemployment as being a poor worker. Economist think of (un)employment as being determined in a labour market. In the labour market, labour is sold by workers to firms at a price called the wage. Homogeneous labour (all labour is the same)