Economics - Chapter 10 Vocabulary

Labor force

The portion of the population that has paid work or is seeking work.

Offshoring

Relocating work and jobs to another country.

Equilibrium wage

The rate of pay that results in neither a surplus nor a shortage of labor.

Fringe benefits

Nonwage compensations offered to workers in addition to pay.

Wage gap

A difference in the wages earned by various groups in society.

Affirmative action

Policies designed to promote the hiring of individuals from groups that have historically faced job discrimination.

Collective bargaining

Negotiations between an employer and a group of employees, usually represented by a labor union, to determine the conditions of employment.

Right-to-work laws

A law that prohibits employers from making union membership a requirement for getting or keeping a job.

Knowledge workers

People who work with information or who develop or apply information in the workplace.

Outsourcing

Business practice of sending work once done by company employees to outside contractors.

Temporary workers

Employed for limited periods of time for a variety of reasons.

Telecommuting

Another growing practice in the labor market who do much or even all of their work at home, using phones and computers to remain connected to their workplaces.

Globalization

The process by which people around the world, along with their economic activities, are becoming increasingly interconnected.

Inshoring

Creates jobs for American workers. Foreign automakers, for example, employ about 80,000 workers in their U.S. manufacturing plants.

Wage discrimination

Occurs when some workers are paid less to do the same job as other workers because of their ethnicity, gender, or other personal characteristics.

Certification

An official recognition that a person is qualified in his or her field.

Yellow-dog contracts

Prohibited workers from joining unions. Employers responded to strikes by hiring strikebreakers to force the strikers back to work.

Closed shop

A business that will only hire workers who are union members.

Union shop

Workers are required to join the union after being hired.

Right-to-work states

Most are located in the South and West.

Bread-and-butter unionism

This means focusing on the economic issues that affect workers' daily lives.

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