Essai de reconstruction des catégories de l'emploi

Abstract

A tentative reconstruction of employment categories. The keynesian concept of involuntary unemployment is difficult to define and appears unadapted to problems of economic growth. Two limiting definitions of “available” workers are proposed ; a) workers discharged during the preceeding period and b) all fit but unemployed members of the population aged 18 to 65 years. The first definition accepts the state of the demand for labour, the second takes the demographic situation as given and trys to adapt the environment to it. Pigou, while referring to the behaviouristic aspects of unemployment in the short period, in fact, gives more importance to the demographic situation in the long run. Beveridge in his two major studies of unemployment used consecutively the theory of Pigou and the theory of Keynes. A series of categories is presented which makes it possible to define more precisely not so much the surplus supply of labour as the receptiveness of the environment to wage employment. The model makes it possible to examine other factors which influence the state of the labour market ; under-employment, disguised unemployment, non — salaried under — employment. The process by which the “available” population enters the “active” population during periods of capital extension and of intensification of work leads to the conclusion that the concept of full employment is only relative.