labour 1 S2 W1 AC British English , labor American English 名词

1 work [不可数名词] work, especially physical work :

The garage charges £30 an hour for labour.

Many women do hard manual labour (= work with their hands ) .

Workers withdrew their labour (= protested by stopping work ) for twenty-four hours. → hard labour

2 workers [不可数名词] all the people who work for a company or in a country :

a shortage of skilled labor

We need to reduce our labour costs.

3 baby [单数形式，不可数] the process of giving birth to a baby

in labour

Meg was in labour for ten hours.

Diane went into labour at 2 o’clock.

a long/short/difficult labour

The labour pains were unbearable.

labour ward/room (= a room in a hospital where women give birth )

4 a labour of love something that is hard work but that you do because you want to

5 sb’s labours formal a period of hard work :

After several hours’ gardening, we sat down to admire the results of our labours.

COLLOCATIONS

ADJECTIVES/NOUN + labour

skilled/unskilled labour Employers want to keep skilled labour because of the cost of training.

cheap labour (= workers who have low wages ) Women and children were used as cheap labour.

casual labour (= workers who do jobs that are not permanent ) The industry makes use of a large supply of casual labour.

child labour The shoe company was accused of using child labour in its factory.

slave labour Cotton was grown using slave labor.

labour + NOUN

the labour force (= all the people who work in a country or for a company ) We need an educated labour force.

the labour supply (= all the people available to work ) What was the effect of the war on the labour supply?

the labour market (= the people looking for work and the jobs available ) the percentage of women in the labour market

a labour shortage Immigrants came into the country to fill the labour shortage.

labour costs There was pressure to keep down labour costs.