Labour economics

Labor economics seeks to understand the functioning and dynamics of the markets for wage labor. Labor markets or job markets function through the interaction of workers and employers. Labor economics looks at the suppliers of labor services (workers), the demands of labor services (employers), and attempts to understand the resulting pattern of wages, employment, and income.

In economics, labor is a measure of the work done by human beings. It is conventionally contrasted with such other factors of production as land and capital. There are theories which have developed a concept called human capital (referring to the skills that workers possess, not necessarily their actual work).

Macro and micro analysis of labor markets

There are two sides to labor economics. Labor economics can generally be seen as the application of microeconomic or macroeconomic techniques to the labor market. Microeconomic techniques study the role of individuals and individual firms in the labor market. Macroeconomic techniques look at the interrelations between the labor market, the goods market, the money market, and the foreign trade market. It looks at how these interactions influence macro variables such as employment levels, participation rates, aggregate income and gross domestic product.