Since we just celebrated labor day, it's useful to figure out what we just celebrated. It's not just that its labor, we have a market that develops it, and offers it up for sale. It's what many of you are doing right now school.
Some links:
First, what is a market?
In economics, a market is a composition of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations or infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services (including labour power) to buyers in exchange for money. It can be said that a market is the process by which the prices of goods and services are established. Markets facilitate trade and enable the distribution and allocation of resources in a society. Markets allow any tradeable item to be evaluated and priced. A market emerges more or less spontaneously or may be constructed deliberately by human interaction in order to enable the exchange of rights (cf. ownership) of services and goods.
Second, what is labor?
Labour is a measure of the work done by human beings. It is conventionally contrasted with other factors of production, such as land and capital. Some theories focus on human capital, or entrepreneurship, (which refers to the skills that workers possess and not necessarily the actual work that they produce). Labour is unique to study because it is a special type of good that cannot be separated from the owner (i.e. the work cannot be separated from the person who does it). A labour market is also different from other markets in that workers are the suppliers and firms are the demanders.
Finally, what is a labor market?
Labour markets or job markets function through the interaction of workers and employers. Labour economics looks at the suppliers of labour services (workers) and the demanders of labour services (employers), and attempts to understand the resulting pattern of wages, employment, and income. These patterns exist because each individual in the market is presumed to make rational choices based on the information that they know regarding wage, desire to provide labour, and desire for leisure. Labour markets are normally geographically bounded, but the rise of the internet has brought about a 'planetary labour market' in some sectors.
