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 works for a set amount of money under a formal or informal employment contract. These transactions usually occur in a labour market where wages or salaries are market-determined. Wage labor is a service in standard economic theory.

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.