But indirectly each sector of the labor market is connected with all other sectors. An increase in the demand for surgical services, however great, will not make stevedores flock into the practice of surgery. Yet the lines between the various sectors of the labor market are not sharply drawn. There prevails a continuous tendency for workers to shift from their branch to other similar occupations in which conditions seem to offer better opportunities. Thus finally every change in demand or supply in one sector affects all other sectors indirectly.
All groups indirectly compete with one another.
If more people enter the medical profession, men are withdrawn from kindred occupations who again are replaced by an inflow of people from other branches and so on. There again we are faced with the fact that the disparity in the quality of work needed for the satisfaction of wants is greater than the diversity in men's inborn ability to perform work. There is no such thing as nonmarket wage rates, just as there are no nonmarket prices. It is usual to call the sector of the market of producers' goods on which labor is hired the labor market. As with all other sectors of the market, the labor market is actuated by the entrepreneurs intent upon making profits.