labour-intensive

British

adjective

of or denoting a task, organization, industry, etc, in which a high proportion of the costs are due to wages, salaries, etc

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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labour-intensive

“As labour-intensive and cost-driven industries lose momentum, opportunities to attract FDI are becoming increasingly constrained for countries at earlier stages of development,” the UN said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026

And Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, added that "investors are rotating away from labour-intensive, fee-based business models that could face margin pressure from AI automation".

From Barron's ● Feb. 13, 2026

It's one of the reasons why boatbuilding is a notoriously labour-intensive business.

From BBC ● Nov. 27, 2025

Manufacturing is no longer the labour-intensive engine of prosperity it once was, but a capital-heavy, high-tech enterprise.

From BBC ● Jun. 15, 2025

Snare removal is labour-intensive and costly, since rangers need to cover large areas on foot in rugged and inaccessible terrain.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 3, 2024

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023