employment

plural employments · alternative imployment

1. countableuncountableThe occupation or work for which one is used, and often paid.

   [I]t is certaine no man sees more of the Navye's Transactions than himselfe [the Clerk of the Acts], and possibly may speak as much to the project if required, or else he is a blockhead, and not fitt for that imployment.

   1893 February (date written), Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, “Particulars of the Life of Samuel Pepys”, in Samuel Pepys; Mynors Bright, transcriber, edited by Henry B. Wheatley, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume I, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1893, →OCLC, page xxvii

2. countableuncountableThe act of employing.

   The personnel director handled the whole employment procedure

3. countableuncountableThe state of being employed.

   The percentage of a country's population in employment used to be called "participation rate".

   2 more examples

   […] King Henry [VIII] full fraught all thoſe vvith vvealth and revvards, vvhom he retained in his imployment.

   a. 1662 (date written), Thomas Fuller, “Cornwall”, in The History of the Worthies of England, London: […] J[ohn] G[rismond,] W[illiam] L[eybourne] and W[illiam] G[odbid], published 1662, →OCLC, page 202

   At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two persons as copyists in my employment, and a promising lad as an office-boy.

   1853 November–December, Herman Melville, “Bartleby”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC

4. countableuncountableA purpose, a use.

   This new employment of his time caused no relaxation in his attention to my education.

   1873, John Stuart Mill, Autobiography of John Stuart Mill

5. countableuncountableAn activity to which one devotes time.
6. countableuncountableeconomicsThe number or percentage of people at work.