Wage labour

Wage labour (also wage labor in American English), usually referred to as paid work, paid employment, or paid labour, refers to the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labour power under a formal or informal employment contract.[1] These transactions usually occur in a labour market where wages or salaries are market-determined.[2]

In exchange for the money paid as wages (usual for short-term work-contracts) or salaries (in permanent employment contracts), the work product generally becomes the undifferentiated property of the employer. A wage labourer is a person whose primary means of income is from the selling of their labour in this way.[not verified in body]

  1. ^ Steinfeld 2009, p. 3: "All labor contracts were/are designed legally to bind a worker in one way or another to fulfill the labor obligations the worker has undertaken. That is one of the principal purposes of labor contracts."
  2. ^ Deakin & Wilkinson 2005