What is a white-collar worker?

White-collar worker definition

A white-collar worker is any employee of an organisation who performs tasks that don’t involve a large amount of manual labour.

This can include many skills, such as bookkeeping and administrative tasks, coding, marketing, and many computer-based tasks.

The term white-collar was coined in the early 1930s, inspired by the white shirts that many office workers would wear. White-collar workers can be employees in both the private and public sectors, although a larger percentage of workers are found in the private sector.

Examples of white-collar workers

As mentioned, the term white-collar worker covers a wide range of roles, mostly held by office workers.

Some examples are:

• Tax Advisor
• Accountant
• Office Manager
• Administrative Coordinator

Are there other terms for white-collar workers?

While the term white-collar worker is widely used, other terms can be used interchangeably with it. These include:

• Office worker
• Clerical worker
• Administrative worker

It is worth noting that the term skilled worker or professional worker may be used alongside white-collar worker, but this term is considered outdated now as blue-collar workers are also skilled.