skilled labor
Americannoun
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labor that requires special training for its satisfactory performance.
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the workers employed in such labor.
Etymology
Origin of skilled labor
First recorded in 1770–80
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Layoffs are low and most companies are reluctant to let go of workers when skilled labor is hard to find.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026
That’s as those companies face bottlenecks from lack of contractors, skilled labor, equipment and transmission to deliver power to compute, he said.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 29, 2025
Only a handful of emerging economies combine digital capability, a skilled labor force, and a meaningful export base in tech.
From Barron's ● Dec. 22, 2025
Some experts are skeptical of startup efforts to solve what is more fundamentally a skilled labor shortage.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 10, 2025
Skilled labor is a power or rather a multiple of simple labor, so that a small amount of skilled labor is equivalent to a larger amount of unskilled labor.
From Landmarks of Scientific Socialism "Anti-Duehring" by Friedrich Engels
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
