LABOUR DEMAND
| FRANCE |
| DEMANDE DE TRAVAIL LABOUR DEMAND |
For any analysis in labour market terms, it is necessary to define the object of exchange and the behaviour of the agents making the exchange. It is impossible to speak of a labour demand in its literal sense from anything but a neoclassical perspective. What is being supplied or demanded is, in fact, a certain working time. The labour demand emanates from enterprises and is determined from the marginal product in labour value, and hence actually fixed by the operating conditions of enterprises. Marxian analyses hold that the object of exchange is not labour but labour power; what is exchanged is, therefore, a potential which is not precisely defined.
Other analyses, based on Keynesian ideas, maintain that labour power is not purchased in its own right. Account must be taken of the constraints on exchange, which, of course, we call employment. This turns the worker, who from the perspective of neoclassical economics is a supplier of labour, into a demander of employment, that is, a demander of a job or post as a means of utilizing his or her labour power.
Please note: the European industrial relations glossaries were compiled between 1991 and 2003 and are not updated. For current material see the European industrial relations dictionary.