13.2 Labour market trends
The workforce is the number of people who are eligible and available to work and offer themselves up as such. The size of the workforce will be determined by cultural and political factors such as the age at which people can enter employment (which in the UK is 16) and the age at which they leave employment. In the UK, the retirement age for men is 65 years, and for women will be 65 years by the year 2020. Those included in the definition of the workforce are: