Employment

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with physical handicaps, encompassing aspects such as hiring practices and the design of buildings intended to serve the public.
Annual Wage
An annual wage refers to a fixed salary paid out to an employee over the course of a year, generally used to determine total compensation for employment services provided within that period.
Attrition
Attrition is the normal and uncontrollable reduction of a workforce due to retirement, death, sickness, and relocation. It provides a natural way for organizations to reduce their workforce without taking overt management actions, though it can lead to unpredictability and gaps.
Civilian Labor Force
The civilian labor force encompasses all individuals aged 16 or over in the United States who are not in military service or institutionalized and are either employed or unemployed but actively seeking and available for work.
Clerk
A clerk is an administrative employee responsible for performing various routine tasks, such as maintaining records, managing inventory, and general office duties. Clerical tasks vary widely depending on the specific role of the clerk.
Contractor
A contractor is an individual or company who contracts to do work for another party. Independent contractors take on specific tasks while maintaining control over the means and methods of executing the job.
Curriculum Vitae (CV)
A biographical résumé of an individual's career, including educational credentials and professional experience. Its purpose is to give prospective employers an understanding of the applicant's professional abilities.
Dead-End Job
A dead-end job, also known as a blind alley job, refers to a position that offers no opportunity for promotion, increased pay, or increased responsibility.
Deflation
Deflation refers to a general decrease in prices across a range of goods and services. It is often associated with reduced levels of output, employment, and trade. Unlike controlled disinflation, deflation can have severe negative impacts on the economy.
Dehiring
Dehiring refers to the process of laying off, firing, or rejecting a previous hiring decision. It involves retracting the employment of an individual or group of employees after they have been hired.
Double-Dipping
Double-dipping refers to the practice where individuals receive multiple forms of financial benefits or salaries simultaneously from two different sources, typically in contexts related to pensions and employment.
Early-Retirement Benefits
Early-retirement benefits are benefits a person is entitled to when retiring before the formal retirement age. Early retirement is increasingly common in the United States.
Economic Base
The term 'Economic Base' refers to the core industries and businesses within a geographic market area that generate the bulk of the employment and economic activity. These industries drive the local economy by attracting financial resources from outside the area, thus providing income and employment opportunities that support the community. Understanding the economic base is crucial for policymakers and business planners to foster sustainable economic development.
Emolument
An emolument refers to the income or compensation received from employment, office, or labor, including salary, fees, and other forms of compensation.
Enrollment Period
The period immediately following employment during which one may sign up for insurance coverage. If an employee decides later to secure coverage, he or she must wait for a period of time or for an open enrollment period.
Equal Opportunity Employer
An Equal Opportunity Employer is committed to providing egalitarian practices in hiring, promotion, and other employment practices by assessing applicants and employees without discrimination.
Foreign Emoluments
Foreign emoluments refer to earnings received by a person domiciled outside the UK from employment with a non-resident employer.
Furlough
A furlough is a temporary leave of absence from an organization, typically granted to employees for a specified period, often without pay. Furloughs can be used for various reasons, including economic downturns, training, or personal necessity.
Guest Worker
A guest worker, also known as a foreign worker, is a person who legally enters a nation to fill a temporary labor shortage and is often employed in sectors such as agriculture, construction, and service industries.
Handicapped Person
A handicapped person is an individual who has a physical or mental disability that results in a functional limitation to employment, and/or significantly impairs one or more major life activities.
Hard-Core Unemployed
The hard-core unemployed are individuals who either have never had a full-time job or have been unable to find work over an extended period of time. These individuals are typically disadvantaged due to a lack of education and job skills.
Heavy Industry
Heavy industry refers to traditional production industries such as auto manufacturing, steel production, rubber processing, petroleum refining, and raw material extraction, which require massive capital investment and produce large quantities of goods. These industries employ large numbers of workers and often have significant environmental impacts.
Interview
An interview is a structured conversation between two or more people conducted with the aim of gathering information for purposes such as guidance, counseling, treatment, or employment.
Job Bank
A job bank is a data repository that contains job listings categorized by various criteria, typically hosted on a computer. It is commonly used by employment agencies and large organizations to enhance job-seeking and hiring processes.
Job Placement
Job placement involves the process of matching individuals' skills and qualifications with suitable employment opportunities, ensuring an optimal fit between management's needs and employee capabilities.
Job Security
Job security refers to the probability that an individual will keep their job; it is the assurance that an employee has about the continuity of gainful employment for their work life.
Labor
Labor refers to the exertion of physical or mental effort for work, often performed for remuneration. It encompasses a broad group of individuals engaged in various occupational functions within organizations.
Labor Force
The labor force encompasses individuals over 16 years of age who are either employed or actively seeking employment, as measured by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Labor Mobility
Labor mobility refers to the ability of workers to change employment easily. Highly mobile workers are often found in occupations that are in great demand.
Labor Pool
A labor pool refers to a source of trained personnel from which prospective workers are recruited.
Lump of Labor Hypothesis
The Lump of Labor Hypothesis is an economic assertion that suggests a zero-sum game scenario where there is a fixed amount of work available within an economy, implying that any increase in productivity or technological advancement will directly reduce the number of available jobs. This hypothesis is widely considered to be fallacious by most economists.
Macroeconomics
Macroeconomics is the branch of economics that studies an economy as a whole, focusing on large-scale factors such as national productivity and inflation, and how various sectors and factors interrelate to form a broader economic landscape.
Make-Work
The term 'make-work' refers to the uneconomic utilization of the workforce, where jobs are created not for their value or necessity but to provide employment opportunities.
Malingerer
A detailed examination of the term 'malingerer,' which refers to an employee who pretends to be ill to avoid work responsibilities.
Moonlighting
Moonlighting refers to the practice of employees taking on a second job, often at night, in addition to their primary employment to increase their income.
Natural Rate of Growth
The rate of growth in national income that maintains the current level of employment and wages. This rate equals the growth rate of the labor force added to the rate of productivity.
Occupation
An occupation refers to a trade, job, business, or vocation of an individual, serving as the principal means by which one earns a livelihood.
Occupational Group
An occupational group is a classification that organizes various job roles and responsibilities within the same broad occupational category, such as marketing, accounting, and management.
Okun's Law
An empirical relationship between unemployment and gross domestic product (GDP), developed by economist Arthur Okun, which states that for every 1% increase in unemployment, there is a corresponding 2% decrease in the national GDP.
Organized Labor
Organized labor, also known as unionized labor, refers to a group of workers who join together to negotiate with their employers regarding wages, hours, benefits, and other working conditions. The AFL-CIO is the largest union representing organized labor in the United States.
Prosperity
A situation characterized by economic growth, low unemployment, and a general sense of well-being among the majority of the economy's population.
Recruiters
Recruiters are professionals responsible for sourcing and acquiring new employees for an organization, typically through a variety of methods such as advertising campaigns, job fairs, and referrals. They play a vital role in the talent acquisition process.
Recruitment
The process of identifying, attracting, interviewing, selecting, hiring, and onboarding employees for an organization. Recruitment is essential for sustaining an organization's workforce and ensuring its growth and development.
Résumé
A résumé is a concise statement of one's background, education, and work experiences. It serves as a marketing tool aimed at securing an interview for employment.
Retirement
Retirement is the act of leaving active employment permanently, with income for the remaining years of life typically coming from sources such as Social Security, pensions, and personal savings.
Sack or Sacked
Terms referring to the dismissal or termination of an employee, originally implying that the employee collected their belongings (such as tools) and left the premises.
Salariat
The Salariat refers to the working class, encompassing those individuals who engage in employment or labor to earn a wage or salary.
Salary
Regular compensation received by an employee as a condition of employment. Salaries comprise basic wage, performance-based pay, and indirect fringe benefit compensation, typically computed on an annual basis.
Service Sector
The service sector is a crucial part of the economy, encompassing businesses that provide services rather than tangible goods. This sector is significant for employment creation and contributions to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Service Worker
Service workers are employees who work in the service sector of the economy, representing a rapidly growing employment category as manufacturing jobs decline in the United States. These workers are often the least represented by unions.
Severance Pay
Severance pay is an income bridge provided by some employers for employees transitioning from employment to unemployment. The amount is negotiable and taxable in the year received.
Sex Stereotyping
Sex stereotyping involves attributing specific traits, behaviors, abilities, or roles to individuals based on their sex or gender. This phenomenon can manifest in various aspects of life, such as employment, credit ratings, consumer behavior, and more. It is a form of prejudice that places expectations and limitations on individuals simply because of their sex, often resulting in discrimination and unequal treatment.
Slowdown
A deliberate reduction of output by employees to bring economic pressure upon an employer without the costs of initiating a strike.
Small Business
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, a small business is defined as a business employing less than 100 people. Small businesses play a disproportionately important role in innovation as well as in economic and employment growth in the United States.
Split Shift
A work shift that is interrupted with an unpaid time-off period, commonly seen in roles like school bus drivers who work early in the morning and late in the afternoon, with the middle of the day off.
Structural Unemployment
Structural Unemployment is a type of unemployment caused by a mismatch between the skills that workers in the economy can offer and the skills demanded by employers.
Swing Shift
A swing shift is a work shift in industry that typically runs from the mid-afternoon until midnight or until the midnight shift.
Tenure
Tenure is a term that spans diverse fields such as property ownership, employment, and academia. It denotes ownership rights, job security contingent on length of employment, and academic privileges that safeguard freedom of speech and employment continuity.
Tuition
Tuition refers to the amounts paid to an educational organization that maintains a regular faculty and curriculum and has a regularly enrolled body of students.
Underemployed
People who are not fully employed according to their education, abilities, and experience. Underemployed individuals are not utilizing their full capabilities and talents, which often leads to frustration and disappointment.
Underpay
Underpay refers to a scenario in which individuals receive wages that are considered insufficient or below the market value for the job or procedure they perform. This can be due to several factors, including market dynamics, organizational policies, or perceived worth.
Unemployable
Individuals who are not employable due to a lack of skills, education, and experience, often resulting in chronic unemployment.
Unemployment
Unemployment is the state of being without paid work, though willing and able to work and actively seeking work. It also refers to the proportion of the labor force that is without paid work.
Union Shop
A union shop is a type of workplace in which all employees must be members of a union. However, nonunion members may work provided they agree to join the union after a specified period.
Union Shop, Modified
A labor agreement providing that existing employees may continue as union or nonunion members, but new employees must join the union.
Unskilled
Describing an individual having no formal skills, training, or education. Unskilled workers are the least employable and most easily replaced through automation.
Upswing
An upswing refers to a period characterized by an improvement or acceleration in economic growth, also known as an economic expansion. This phase typically features increased economic activity, rising GDP, higher employment rates, and often improvements in consumer and business confidence.
Work Experience
Experience gained while employed in a particular occupation. Work experience is valuable in building a successful career and fosters the ability to assume greater responsibilities.
Work Force (Labor Force)
The term 'work force' or 'labor force' refers to the total number of people who are eligible and willing to work, either currently employed or actively seeking employment. In economic terms, it encompasses both the employed and the unemployed who are looking for jobs, excluding those who are not seeking employment, such as retirees, students, or homemakers.
Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC)
A tax credit available to employers for wages paid to employees hired from certain targeted groups of hard-to-employ individuals. Generally, the credit is 40% of the first $6,000 of qualified wages ($3,000 for qualified summer youth employees) paid to each member of a targeted group during the first year of employment, and 25% in the case of wages attributable to individuals meeting only minimum employment levels.
Working Poor
The working poor are individuals who are economically disadvantaged despite being fully employed. They do not earn enough income to significantly improve their overall standard of living.

Accounting Terms Lexicon

Discover comprehensive accounting definitions and practical insights. Empowering students and professionals with clear and concise explanations for a better understanding of financial terms.