job

Job

Gainful employment. Strictly speaking, a job refers to employment by another person or company, but the word is often used to describe self-employment as well. Because individuals are compensated for their work at their jobs, these are considered necessary for a society to function. According to Keynesian economics, the money one earns from a job can create more jobs because the money creates demand for goods and services that must be provided. Supply-side economics, on the other hand, maintains that lower taxes are best for job creation.

Farlex Financial Dictionary. © 2012 Farlex, Inc. All Rights Reserved

job

1. a work task or series of work tasks to be performed. For factory operatives the work tasks are often clearly defined as a specific set of machining or assembly operations. By contrast, at senior management level, work tasks are less clearly defined and managers have more discretion as to the range of tasks to be performed and how they are performed.
2. a unit of good or service for which costs can be ascertained. The job or cost unit could consist of a single order. Alternatively, the job or cost unit could be a batch or group of identical products passing together through production.

Collins Dictionary of Business, 3rd ed. © 2002, 2005 C Pass, B Lowes, A Pendleton, L Chadwick, D O’Reilly and M Afferson

job

a work task or series of work tasks to be performed in order to produce a good or service. Jobs differ in terms of skills, physical fitness, personality, etc., requirements, and in terms of the decision-making autonomy and responsibilities involved. Some jobs involve a wide-ranging set of work tasks while others may be broken down into a number of narrowly defined activities through a ‘division of labour’. Such SPECIALIZATION is often conducive to achieving high levels of labour PRODUCTIVITY in industries such as motor-car assembly that utilize mass production techniques. In other cases, productivity may be enhanced by grouping together larger numbers of work tasks to form individual jobs. Job design has an important effect on job satisfaction and thus levels of absenteeism, labour turnover, industrial disputes, etc., which affect productivity In some instances the process of specialization has been partially reversed by programmes of job enlargement (adding additional tasks to provide greater variety), 288

job rotation (where workers rotate jobs to reduce monotony) and job enrichment (where workers are given greater scope in deciding how tasks should be performed).

Collins Dictionary of Economics, 4th ed. © C. Pass, B. Lowes, L. Davies 2005