EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT POLICY:

Engagement of a person in any economic activity is central to the concept of identifying a worker. A worker is one who participates in any economic activity. His or her human capital endowment is utilised by the society (or the economy) and in the process, he or she earns a living. All workers constitute the workforce or the employed. Those who are not workers are called non-workers. Some among the non-workers may be seeking or looking for work or are available for work. Such persons constitute the  unemployed. The workforce and the unemployed together make up the labour force. The entire population of any area, region or country is, thus, made up of three components; the workforce (the employed), the unemployed and the non-workers. The third component is also referred to, for obvious reasons, as the population which is not a part of the labour force. The first is engaged in economic activity and produces the national product, the second is available for being engaged in such activity but the economy is unable to utilise it and the third is not available for utilisation in economic activity. Schematically, workforce can be illustrated as follows:    

How are the workers or the employed and the other two categories of people in a given area - a region or a country, say, India - identified and enumerated? How are the workforce and the labour force measured? We shall answer these questions in the next section.