Last year, labour market economist John Philpott found that more than one in five workers, around 7.1 million people, were in precarious employment, up from 5.3 million in 2006. It is not obvious in some analyses, but it is important to note that economic profits include opportunity costs. The profit of an entrepreneur (normal profit) is usually positive, but economic profit can be either positive or negative (loss). That's why the opportunity cost is included: in a completely competitive market, when marginal cost equals marginal revenue, profit maximization or loss minimization conditions arise. If the market price is lower than the total average cost, which means that the economic profit is negative, the entrepreneur needs to compare the value of the loss and the average variable cost. If the business continues to operate, the negative economic profit must not be lower than the average variable cost, otherwise the entrepreneur would rather shut down the company than continue to take the loss.