diff --git a/recordlinkage/base.py b/recordlinkage/base.py
old mode 100644
new mode 100755
index ec3bab6d..039e3ca5
--- a/recordlinkage/base.py
+++ b/recordlinkage/base.py
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 import warnings
 from abc import ABCMeta, abstractmethod
 
-from joblib import Parallel, delayed
+from joblib import Parallel, delayed, cpu_count
 
 import numpy as np
 
@@ -538,7 +538,10 @@ def __init__(self, features=[], n_jobs=1, indexing_type='label',
         self.add(features)
 
         # public
-        self.n_jobs = n_jobs
+        if n_jobs == -1:
+            self.n_jobs = cpu_count()
+        else:
+            self.n_jobs = n_jobs
         self.indexing_type = indexing_type  # label of position
         self.features = []