scarcity.

Limited availability of a resource relative to the demands or uses for it.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• resource scarcity
• scarcity of skilled labor

On the page

Resource scarcity required choices even though none of the materials was completely unavailable.

Scarcity of skilled labor affected which projects could be completed within the year.

Usage notes

Primary category: economics / business / social science. Forms: Usually uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: economic explanation, resource analysis, incentive analysis, comparison. Disciplines: economics, business, social science. Commonness: moderately common.