Wages, a good gauge of labour demand, are growing sluggishly.
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At the same time, the demand for educated labour is being reconfigured by technology, in much the same way that the demand for agricultural labour was reconfigured in the 19th century and that for factory labour in the 20th.
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Most Americans say they want a cut in the rate of immigration, but current labour-market demand makes this hard to insist on.
He praised Mr Miliband's call to forge alliances in the EU to bring about reforms, but when asked to comment on Labour's demand for a cut in the EU budget, and support from some senior figures for a referendum on EU membership, he gave what he described as a "diplomatic" answer.
If a whole industry leaves America's shores, demand for labour will ebb, and wages will fall.
So when demand for labour rises, there will be less slack in the system to meet it.
We need changes in order to create greater private-sector demand for labour, which will boost wages and employment.
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Many of the new jobs from inward investment are in call centres, some of which demand skilled labour.
Why the price of labour responds less to demand than that of other commodities is a bit of a puzzle.
Pay cuts are more likely at firms whose demand for labour is price-sensitive, such as those in highly competitive industries.
With unemployment now down to 5.3%, this suggests that the demand for labour may at last be starting to outstrip the supply.
Third, the demand for labour has fallen since the mid-1980s as technological change reduced the need for unskilled workers and as companies have restructured.
Mr Blair's demand that Labour's contingent in any Scottish parliament toe the national party's line on tax also seems to misunderstand how the Edinburgh parliament is supposed to operate.
There is more evidence of slack in the labour market, where weak demand for new workers is helping to hold down wage growth.
Unless regulations are relaxed to allow more short-term workers into Britain, full-time British jobs will be put at risk and the demand for illegal labour will continue to grow.
At the same time, as Mr Viljoen's experience shows, grain is increasingly being stored and milled in rural areas, pushing up demand for skilled labour, and raising profits and wages.
Part of the answer is that the proportion of working-age men actually in work is lower than it was ten or 20 years ago, thanks to a drop in the demand for unskilled labour.
The globalisation of the world economy, together with declining demand for manual labour and the simplistic belief that this must put nations increasingly in competition with one another, has lately given investment in knowledge a political resonance it lacked before.
Labour-market reforms would increase demand for less-skilled workers, particularly in service industries such as health care.
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The problem has grown more acute as demand for short-term labour has increased.
Indeed a classic demand of the 19th Century labour movement was "Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest".
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So did the job-destroying mechanised cotton pickers in the southern states and the demand for strong-back labour in northern ones.
America's labour market is still tight, consumer demand is still strong.
The fate of other firms depends on a host of factors besides child labour, from the level of world demand to the strength of the rupee.
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The unemployment rates in many European countries are below America's, but that may be because their more rigid labour markets adjust more slowly to falling demand.
In August, the Bank put interest rates on hold for a few months in the hope that monetary growth, exports and domestic demand would abate and that labour markets would slacken.
That is because they are seeing their incomes rise in real terms and there is strong demand for workers in a shrinking labour pool.
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Labour's Ed Miliband said the PM should demand an urgent meeting of EU leaders.
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