The concept of blue-collar and white-collar comes from the type of clothes you wear to work. Collar is the top of your shirt that folds over. In the past, if you worked in a factory job, with your hands or did heavy lifting, you traditionally had a blue uniform that had a blue collar on it. So, blue-collar workers were associated with working-class jobs. If you got a job in an office, probably because you had more formal training at university or because your skills were more related to office work, then you traditionally wore a white shirt to work (obviously, this referred to men’s dress shirts). So, the white-collared shirt became synonymous with the upper and middle class jobs.
BLUE-COLLAR
- Adjective
- Used to refer to people who work with their hands, with manual labor or in a factory.
- Also used to talk about things (mainly jobs or neighborhoods) that are working-class or less skilled
- Although he grew up in a blue-collar family, he is now a multi-millionaire.
- In the future, blue-collar jobs will be safe from AI and people who work as plumbers, electricians and carpenters are in high demand.
WHITE-COLLAR
- Adjective
- Used to refer to people who work in offices and tend to have some higher education in office-related work.
- It is also used to talk about things (mainly jobs and neighborhoods) that are middle to upper class
- Some white-collar jobs such as legal assistants are already being replaced by AI
- There are some blue-collar jobs today that earn more money than white-collar ones.
ENGLISH VOCABULARY
Now that you have seen Blue-collar White-collar, take a look at some of our other Vocab Rehab posts:
Vocab Rehab: 10 Gen z slang words
Vocab Rehab: Game changer
