Wage labour
Topic: Factors of Production, Entrepreneurship and Startups · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Introduction (Macroeconomics)"
Meaning
Wage labour is labour that is bought and sold for money. Its price is called the wage rate. Workers do not own the business. They sell their time and effort to an employer, who pays them wages. Wage labour is a defining feature of a capitalist economy, where firms hire workers and use their labour to make goods for sale and profit.
Example
A garment factory in Tiruppur hires workers at a fixed daily wage to stitch shirts. The workers sell their labour, and the factory owner sells the shirts.
Don't confuse with
- Family labour: on a peasant farm, family members do the work themselves. They are not hired for a wage, and part of the output is kept for the family's own use.