Potential Labour Force

Potential labour force (entrants) is defined as all persons of working age who, during the short reference period, were neither in employment nor in unemployment and:

(a) carried out activities to “seek employment”, were not “currently available” but would become available within a short subsequent period established in the light of national circumstances (i.e. unavailable jobseekers); or
(b) did not carry out activities to “seek employment”, but wanted employment and were “currently available” (i.e. available potential jobseekers).

Among the activities listed in the definition it may be useful to identify separately discouraged jobseekers, comprising those who did not “seek employment” for labour market-related reasons.

A separate group with an expressed interest in employment not included within the potential labour force but relevant for social and gender analysis in specific contexts is the willing non-jobseekers, defined as persons “not in employment” who wanted employment but did not “seek employment” and were not “currently available”.

In order to identify the two categories of the potential labour force as well as the willing non-jobseekers, questions on activities to “seek employment” and “current availability” should be asked of all persons “not in employment” in the short reference period. The question to determine whether persons wanted employment should only be asked to those who did not carry out activities to “seek employment”.

Resolution I. Resolution concerning statistics of work, employment and labour underutilization, the 19 ICLS