Estimating Labour Supply in Policy-Oriented Regional Planning Models

The importance of integrating policies concerned with the demand and supply of labour within growing regions has long been recognized. However, there are important theoretical deficiencies associated with orthodox methods. In the traditional approach to operational urban and regional models it is claimed that the relationship between labour demand and labour supply is functional and one sided, that is, the growth of labour demand causes population growth and leads to an assured level of labour supply. However it is argued that in the development of regional labour-force policies aimed at recognized objectives, estimates of the number and characteristics of persons available to the labour force are at least as important as estimates of the structure of labour demand. A change in the traditional theoretical framework is therefore necessary to allow for the influence of a particular population structure upon the supply of labour—in aggregate as well as to different occupational submarkets. Presentation of a more independent treatment of methods aimed at estimating the ‘availability’ (and the ‘requirements’) of labour also allows for the possibility, and consequences, of imbalance in the labour market to be recognized.