labor force
41
2.2
- noun
- /ˈleɪbər fɔrs/
- Specialized
- One-third of women in the labor force are in clerical positions.
- labor force participation
- labor force participation rate
- percent of the labor force
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Watch on YouTubeAnd so women were part, very much part of the expanding labour force.
- And so women were part, very much part of the expanding labour force.
- That is a bit more than half of the US labor force.
- Fact, many countries with a much stronger welfare state have a much higher labor force participation rate.
- This generation who came into the labour force during COVID are scarred forever because of this.
- And it's a traditional white blue collar working class that's out of the labour force.
- And that is something that I really hope we can change because without it, we're not going to have the labor force we need.
- Figures from the OECD showed that in terms of labour force participation, the UK is a significant outlier among its peers.
- Increased labour force participation, especially among women, attract foreign direct investors and strengthen Egypt's macroeconomic stability.
- India has a particularly anti female labor force participation.
- This was the idea that the resources were there, the labor force and the technology, in my view.
- We'll get the military to pull down illegal housing where you're going to get a labour force to do the lowest income work.
- We've reversed a generation of women when improving women's participation in the labor force.
- It's an impossible debt system because what what white people wanted was that dependent labor force and whatever it took to keep them.
Examples
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The Middle East reports the least number of women and children in its labor force.
Academic text (1999) -
Additionally, farmworkers are a critical labor force that assists with the production and distribution of the US food supply.
Academic text (2011) -
So they are the labor force in modern industrial society.
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This was the idea that the resources were there, the labor force and the technology, in my view.
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Look, more people joining the labor force is actually a good thing.
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Swedish women who left the labor force to take care of their families.
Academic text (1990) -
The welfare benefits and retirement security of the labor force shall be protected by law.
Academic text (1990) -
Fact, many countries with a much stronger welfare state have a much higher labor force participation rate.
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Some key areas on which to focus are labor force participation, education, and political involvement.
Academic text (1991) -
The labor force in our country has been steadily increasing over the past decade.
Synonyms
588
2.3
The group of people who work, usually organized in unions
249
2.4
All the people who work in a company, industry, or country
81
3.7
The number of people who can do work in a company or area
4
3.7
A group of workers available for companies to hire
1
3.3
Workers who are available to do jobs in a country or company
How Many
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is compositionally derived: 'labor' = workers and 'force' = a group/collective, so 'labor force' straightforwardly denotes the group of workers or people available to work. This construction is cross-linguistically common (e.g., Spanish 'fuerza laboral' / 'fuerza de trabajo'), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will very likely infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Labor force may come from a simple picture: many workers acting together like a single force in factories or fields. Here labor means work and force means a group or strength, so the phrase came to mean 'all the people available to work'.