[The job market in health. Concepts and methods]

The eighties have been seen a rise in the number of studies done to identify trends in the health market. This interest is explained by the economic crisis, a surfeit of health professionals (and the resulting unemployment), and the spread of health research methods using a sociological approach. It is noted, however that research in this new field is impeded by a dissociation between theory and practice. A first approach to the idea of a work force comprises people in the health sector whose work skills are bought and sold. The concept is then broadened to encompass all persons employed in health--even those who are not paid--on the condition that they put in or be required to put in a regular number of hours per day (this includes the unemployed). The article examines the methodological difficulties involved in determining employment in health, notably the measurement of availability and use; the search for data on the number of occupations per individual and the number of remunerated and unremunerated posts; the nature of categorizing of self-employed, employee, and volunteer; the measurement of working time relative to a specific period of time and differentiating between employment in a health establishment and health employment in some other sector (in factories, for example). The article takes Brazil as its case in point.