Labour: Types and Importance are listed and explicated in this article and we hope you find it informative and helpful to your research.
Labour: Types and Importance
Read Also: Characteristics of Labour
In this article, we will be looking at the types of labor that exist on earth and also we will bring to your notice the importance of labor as a factor of production.
Types of labour
There are primarily two main types of labour. Which are skilled and unskilled labour
1. Unskilled labour
Just like the name implies, unskilled labour needs little or no formal education before carrying out their assigned responsibilities.
This is because unskilled laborers make greater use of their physical abilities rather than their mental energies.
They do not need any expertise. It is the jobs of unskilled labour that is often referred to as ‘brown collar jobs’.
Because they have never gone through any formal education, they are often engaged in menial jobs such as; gardeners, cleaners, messengers, guards, and low-level assistants in big companies.
Read Also: Characteristics of Capital
2. Skilled labour
Being antonymous to unskilled labour, skilled labour is those who make use of their mental effort to make a profit.
To be called a skilled labourer, means that a person must have gone through a set of training that will further enhance his ability to work.
Skilled laborers often hold sensitive positions in big companies and organizations because of the knowledge that they have gathered over the years at the institutions that they attended and their kind of job is what is often referred to as ‘white-collar jobs’.
Importance of labour
No matter how much technology exists on earth, for good and quality products to take place, Labour is a very vital tool that should not be toyed with in production because of the following reasons:
1. Provision of personnel
Labour is usually the factor of production that is responsible for the provision of the required skills or personnel that are needed during the process of production.
Read Also: Types and Importance of Capital
All the big machines that have come into existence as a result of technology would still be totally useless without adequate labour to operate on them and even with the presence of technology in every field of life, it takes adequate labour to take care of stuff to the tiniest details.
2. It influences other factors of production
Sometimes, labour can act independently on its own without capital and land but none of these other factors of production can operate independently of labour because Labour plays an active role in other factors of production without which land and capital will remain idle and utterly useless.
3. Production of goods and services
Most of the good things that are seen in the world today are a product of labour, especially the active working population, labour, when provided with basic things needed for production usually provide goods and services which are needed by the general populace, which includes the aged and the children.
4. Operation of machines
Labour is required in industries to operate machines and carry out various production processes. As earlier discussed, when there is no labour in a company, the machines will just be there and not yield any profit or become useless but labour makes them work such that they yield so many returns.
Read Also: Advantages of Division of Labour
Howbeit, labour has some limitations and sometimes cannot operate without land and capital. But when it is at its best, labour is a very smart and essential factor of production that can improvise in cases where there is no land or capital.
