unskilled labor
Americannoun
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work that requires practically no training or experience for its adequate or competent performance.
-
the labor force employed for such work.
Etymology
Origin of unskilled labor
First recorded in 1825–35
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.
I think anyone who’s done unskilled labor would be able to relate.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2024
It was like, "That person took my work. That person that I can point to is using these machines and child labor and unskilled labor to run them."
From Salon ● Oct. 3, 2023
I accompanied her team as an embedded journalist, earning my keep with unskilled labor, much of it involving a snow shovel.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 18, 2022
The aim of the early factory owners and managers was to simplify the stages of the manufacturing process so that they could be executed by cheap, unskilled labor.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2020
In 1950, nearly three in five black women in Montgomery, Alabama’s capital city, worked as maids for white families, and almost three-quarters of employed black men mowed lawns and did other kinds of unskilled labor.
From "Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice" by Phillip Hoose
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.
