TYPES OF JOBS

A job is a regular activity performed in exchange for payment. A person usually begins a job by becoming an employee, volunteering, or starting a business. If a person is trained for a certain type of job, they may have a profession. The series of jobs a person holds in their life is their career. There are a variety of jobs: full time, part time, temporary, odd jobs, seasonal, self-employment. Those who do not hold down a steady job may do odd jobs or be unemployed.

Full-time employment is employment in which the employee works the full number of hours defined by his/her employer. Full-time employment often comes with benefits that are not typically offered to part-time, temporary, or flexible workers, such as annual leave, sick leave, and health insurance.

A part-time job is a form of employment that carries fewer hours per week than a full-time job. Part-time workers work fewer than 30 or 35 hours per week. According to the International Labour Organization, the number of part-time workers has increased from one-fourth to a half in the past 20 years in most developed countries.

Self-employment is working for one's self.

Temporary work or temporary employment refers to a situation where the employee is expected to leave the employer within a certain period of time. Temporary employees are sometimes called "contractual", "seasonal", "interim", or "freelance"; or the word may be shortened to "temps." Agricultural workers are often temporarily employed for harvesting. In some instances, temporary professional employees (particularly in the white collar fields, such as law, engineering, and accounting) even refer to themselves as "consultants."

There are people in tourism who work for themselves. They are called freelancers. They don't work full-time for any tourist company. They work part-time or in high season only. They don't work in low and off-season. Among freelancers there are guides, guides-interpreters, escorts, animators, travel writers. Tourist companies, resort hotels and holidays centers employ them for seasonal work. Cruising companies, resort hotels and holiday centers employ animators for summer high season. Travel agencies which deal with in-coming tourism employ guides, guide-interpreters, escorts. Travel writers offer their articles to magazines and newspapers when they wish to.

Exercise 1. Have you got a job? If so, how many of these statements are true for you in your job? (If you haven't got a job, how many of these things would you like to do?)

1 I work at a computer a lot of the time.

2 I do quite a lot of general paperwork.

3 I make a lot of phone calls.

4 I send faxes occasionally.

5 I show people around my workplace.

6 I arrange meetings.

7 I attend (= go to) quite a lot of meetings.

8 I have to write letters and reports.

9 I go to conferences.