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Glite Dictionary
guestworker

guestworker

6.4
A person from another country who has permission to work there for a short time
  • noun
  • /ˈɡɛstˌwɜrkər/
translation icon : trabajador invitado
  • The company hired a guestworker to fill the position while waiting for a local candidate to be found.
  • guestworker program

Examples

  • Many industries rely on guestworkers to meet their seasonal labor demands.

  • "The Guestworker" allows H-2A workers to speak for themselves and shows the reality of life on one North Carolina farm.

    Academic text (2004)

  • Guestworker programs suppress wages.

    Blog text (11)

  • To seek an answer to this question, among others, Cynthia Hill and Charles D. Thompson, Jr. (co-author of this article) have produced a documentary film entitled "The Guestworker: Bienvenidos a Carolina del Norte (Welcome to North Carolina).

    Academic text (2004)

  • The Farmworker Justice Fund proclaimed that the president was "essentially proposing a new era of indentured servants," adding that the US had "experimented with indentured servitude and 'guestworker' programs before; they failed miserably and caused great misery."

    Academic text (2004)

  • A guestworker is allowed to work temporarily in a country where they are not a permanent resident.

Synonyms

guest worker
vsguestworker
20 3.5

A person from another country allowed to do a job for a short time

means the same but is written as a single word

Antonyms

citizen
∞ 1.4

A person who belongs to a country and has rights and duties there

Surface Forms

guestworker singular
guestworkers plural

Morphology

guestworker = guest + worker (transparent) = guest + worker

Meaning is directly interpretable as a worker who is a guest/temporary visitor; the compound denotes a temporary foreign worker and follows regular English compounding logic.

Etymology

The word guestworker is made of guest and worker, so think of 'guest' as someone visiting and 'worker' as someone who works. That's why a guestworker is a person allowed to work in another country for a short time.