Other forms: employments
Employment is having paid work, or the giving of it. A job, with somebody paying you to do it.
The word is more formal than work and belongs to law, statistics and contracts, which is why we have employment law, an employment tribunal and employment figures. It takes in: employment in the public sector. The pair employer and employee divides who pays from who is paid. Self-employment is working for yourself, and full employment is the economic ideal where everybody who wants a job has one.
1nounemploymentThe state of having paid work.
“He found employment at the sawmill.”
2nounactThe act of employing people.
“The scheme encourages the employment of school leavers.”
To employ is to fold somebody in. Latin plicō meant to fold, and employment folds a person into the work, using the same fold that turns up inside imply.
Middle French
employer
English, today
employment
Built from
From employ (itself from Middle French employer, from Middle French empleier, from Latin implicō (“enfold, involve, be connected with”), itself from in- + plicō (“fold”)) ment.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA