ESSENTIAL JOB VOCABULARY
- I work at (a company).
- I work for (a company / a person)
- I work in (a place, city, country, department, or general area)
- I work with (people / things)
In
conversational English, the question “Where do you work?” is
commonly phrased as “What do you do?” or “What do you do for a
living?”
How
do you answer this question if you don’t have a job?
You
can say “I’m
unemployed” -
or, more indirectly, “I’m
between jobs at the moment.”
If
you work for yourself, you can say “I’m
self-employed.” If
you have your own company, you can say, “I
own a small business,” or
more specifically, “I
own a restaurant” or “I
own a graphic design company.”
Now let’s learn some essential employment vocabulary.
When
you are officially accepted into a new job at a company, you
are hired by
the company. For example, “I
was hired by
an insurance company just two weeks after graduating from college.”
When you’re hired, you become an employee of
the company. The company becomes your employer. The
other employees in the company are your colleagues or coworkers. The
person above you who is responsible for your work is
your boss or supervisor.
As
an employee of the company, you earn
a salary -
money you receive regularly for your work. Don’t make the mistake
of saying “win a salary” or “get a salary” – the
correct verb is “earn.”
If you’re good at your job, you might get a pay
raise (or
a raise)
– an increase in your salary. You could also get a promotion -
an increase in importance and authority. At the end of the year, some
companies give their employees a bonus -
extra money for work well done.
The
opposite of “hire” is fire -
when your company forces you to leave your job. For example, “Peter
was fired because
he never came to work on time.” Usually if someone is fired, it’s
because they did something bad. If an employee loses his or her job
because of a neutral reason, like the company reducing its size, then
we say the employee was laid
off. For
example, “Donna was laid
off when
her company started having financial problems.”
If
you decide to leave your job, there are three verbs you can use:
- I’m going to quit my job.
- I’m going to leave my job.
- I’m going to resign.
“Quit”
is informal, “resign” is formal, and “leave” can be formal or
informal.
When
an old person decides to stop working, the verb for this
is retire. In
most countries, people retire around age 65.
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