employment

American  

[em-ploi-muhnt] / ɛmˈplɔɪ mənt /

noun

• employments
  plural

1. an act or instance of employing someone or something.

2. the state of being employed; employ; service.

   to begin or terminate employment.

3. an occupation by which a person earns a living; work; business.

   Synonyms:

   profession, trade, job, calling, vocation

4. the total number of people gainfully employed or working.

5. an activity or the like that occupies a person's time.

   She found knitting a comforting employment for her idle hours.

---

employment British  

/ ɪmˈplɔɪmənt /

noun

1. the act of employing or state of being employed

2. the work or occupation in which a person is employed

3. the purpose for which something is used

---

Usage

What does employment mean? Employment most generally means the state of having a paid job—of being employed. To employ someone is to pay them to work. An employer provides employment to employees. Employment can also refer to the act of employing people, as in We’re working to increase our employment of women. Or it can refer to a person’s work or how they earn a living, as in What does he do for employment?In the context of economics, employment is commonly used to mean the total number of people employed, such as in a country, as in Employment is up this quarter, with thousands of new jobs having been created. The opposite of this is unemployment—the total number of people who are unemployed (who do not have a job). Unemployment also commonly means the state of being unemployed. Employ can also be used as a synonym of the verb use, and employment can be employed as a synonym of the noun use, as in The employment of artificial intelligence creates many ethical concerns. Example:In this economy, finding consistent employment is a challenge for many workers.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonemployment
  noun
• overemployment
  noun
• reemployment
  noun
• proemployment
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• employments
  plural

---

Etymology

Origin of employment

First recorded in 1585–95; employ + -ment

---

Explanation

Employment is your occupation or the fact that you have a job. If you are looking for employment, you might start by attending a job fair — if you make a good impression, you might get hired immediately. If you have employment, it means you have a job. You can also use the noun employment to talk about exactly what that job involves, like your employment in the entertainment industry or in the carnival business. Employment also refers to the act of giving someone a job. The Latin root is the word implicare, meaning "enfold, involve, or be connected with."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

employment employments

Here is how it works: The central bank takes the policy-rate path implied by financial-market prices for the years of the forecast and generates outcomes for growth, employment and inflation.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026

The latest steps are mainly concentrated in "strategic infrastructure investment", said Oxford Economics' Yue, meaning that they are "likely to generate weaker near-term employment and income gains than previous stimulus cycles".

From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026

In Scotland, another employment tribunal found, in December 2025, that a nurse, Sandie Peggie, had been harassed by NHS Fife over its interpretation of rules on single sex spaces.

From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026

In an interview published by Semafor, Goolsbee says rates can come down if the Fed gets evidence that inflation is on a path back to 2% with full employment.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026

To be sure, what I begged was employment; but whose business was it to provide me with employment?

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

This lack of key inflation and employments reports is sure to complicate the Fed’s decision at its Dec. 9-10 meeting.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 21, 2025

"We have the last throw of the dice in order to bring back some part of that industry, if we don't then we have to look for alternative employments for the 820,000 people."

From BBC ● Mar. 30, 2023

The labor studies and employments relations major had seven punts downed inside the 20, including five inside the 10 and four inside the 5.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 19, 2019

"That is very unusual. Like many employments that are still unfilled, FAA administrator is an extremely important position," Captain Ross "Rusty" Aimer told Salon last week, before Trump had finally filled the position.

From Salon ● Mar. 21, 2019

All titles of honour indubitably originated in official employments, though, in the lapse of ages, they have become, as to the majority, entirely honorary.

From The Curiosities of Heraldry by Mark Antony Lower

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---

Related Words

• business
• contracting
• enrollment
• hiring
• job
• recruitment
• service
• trade

---