diff --git a/gf.cabal b/gf.cabal
index 9b427afa6..bbdf7d090 100644
--- a/gf.cabal
+++ b/gf.cabal
@@ -254,11 +254,11 @@ Library
     GF.Speech.SRGS_XML
     GF.Speech.VoiceXML
     GF.System.Catch
+    GF.System.Concurrency
     GF.System.Console
     GF.System.Directory
     GF.System.Process
     GF.System.Signal
---  GF.System.UseSignal
     GF.Text.Clitics
     GF.Text.Coding
     GF.Text.Lexing
diff --git a/src/compiler/GF/CompileInParallel.hs b/src/compiler/GF/CompileInParallel.hs
index 07c29febd..7986656ec 100644
--- a/src/compiler/GF/CompileInParallel.hs
+++ b/src/compiler/GF/CompileInParallel.hs
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ import Prelude hiding (catch)
 import Control.Monad(join,ap,when,unless)
 import Control.Applicative
 import GF.Infra.Concurrency
+import GF.System.Concurrency
 import System.FilePath
 import qualified GF.System.Directory as D
 import GF.System.Catch(catch,try)
@@ -27,11 +28,12 @@ import qualified Data.ByteString.Lazy as BS
 -- the broken PGF files that can result from mixing different modes in the
 -- same concrete syntax.
 --
--- The first argument is supposed to be the number of jobs to run in
--- parallel, but this has not been implemented yet. Instead you have to
+-- The first argument controls the number of jobs to run in
+-- parallel. This works if GF was compiled with GHC>=7.6, otherwise you have to
 -- use the GHC run-time flag @+RTS -N -RTS@ to enable parallelism.
 parallelBatchCompile jobs opts rootfiles0 =
-  do rootfiles <- mapM canonical rootfiles0
+  do setJobs jobs
+     rootfiles <- mapM canonical rootfiles0
      lib_dir  <- canonical =<< getLibraryDirectory opts
      filepaths <- mapM (getPathFromFile lib_dir opts) rootfiles
      let groups = groupFiles lib_dir filepaths
@@ -66,6 +68,13 @@ parallelBatchCompile jobs opts rootfiles0 =
         dropSlash ('\\':p) = p
         dropSlash p = p
 
+setJobs opt_n =
+  do ok <- setNumCapabilities opt_n
+     when (not ok) $
+       ePutStrLn $ "To set the number of concurrent threads"
+                   ++" you need to use +RTS -N"++maybe "" show opt_n
+                   ++"\n   or recompile GF with ghc>=7.6"
+
 batchCompile1 lib_dir (opts,filepaths) =
   do cwd <- D.getCurrentDirectory
      let rel = relativeTo lib_dir cwd
diff --git a/src/compiler/GF/System/Concurrency.hs b/src/compiler/GF/System/Concurrency.hs
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..38e6559fc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/compiler/GF/System/Concurrency.hs
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+{-# LANGUAGE CPP,ForeignFunctionInterface #-}
+-- | A variant of 'Control.Concurrent.setNumCapabilities' that automatically
+-- detects the number of processors in the system, and is available
+-- even when compiling with GHC<7.6.
+module GF.System.Concurrency(
+  -- * Controlling parallelism
+  setNumCapabilities,getNumberOfProcessors) where
+import qualified Control.Concurrent as C
+import Foreign.C.Types(CInt(..))
+
+
+
+
+-- | Set parallelism to a given number, or use the number of processors.
+-- Returns 'False' if compiled with GHC<7.6 and the desired number of threads
+-- hasn't already been set with @+RTS -N/n/ -RTS@.
+setNumCapabilities opt_n =
+  do n <- maybe getNumberOfProcessors return opt_n
+#if MIN_VERSION_base(4,6,0)
+     C.setNumCapabilities n
+     return True
+#else
+     n_now <- C.getNumCapabilities
+     print (n,n_now)
+     return (n==n_now)
+#endif
+
+-- | Returns the number of processors in the system.
+getNumberOfProcessors = fmap fromEnum c_getNumberOfProcessors
+
+-- | According to comments in cabal-install cbits/getnumprocessors.c
+-- this function is part of the RTS of GHC>=6.12.
+foreign import ccall "getNumberOfProcessors" c_getNumberOfProcessors :: IO CInt