Glossary:Person available to work but not seeking
Persons available to work but not seeking are the sum of persons aged 15-74 neither employed nor unemployed who want to work and:
- are available to work in the next 2 weeks but are not seeking work;
- were passively seeking work during the last 4 weeks and are available to work in the next 2 weeks;
- found a job to start in more than 3 months and are available to work in the next 2 weeks.
Note that until 2020 the EU-LFS did not collect the availability to work for people who already found a job to start in more than 3 months. For this reason, all persons having already found a job to start in more than 3 months were classified as seeking work but not immediately available until 2020.
This indicator covers jobless people who do not qualify for recording as unemployed because they are not actively looking for a job. It includes, among others, discouraged jobseekers and persons prevented from job-seeking due to personal or family circumstances.
The sum of the two groups persons seeking work but not immediately available and persons available to work but not seeking is called the potential additional labour force (PAF). Persons in the PAF are not part of the standard labour force, which is the sum of employed and unemployed people. However, persons in the PAF have a stronger attachment to the labour market than other people outside the standard labour force (i.e. neither employed nor unemployed).
Related concepts
- Employment
- Person seeking work but not immediately available
- Underemployed part-time worker
- Unemployment