Key Notions and Words Complete the list of the vocabulary using dictionaries and reference books, transcribe the words and practice their pronunciation.

Achiever Advancement Antisocial Appointment Apprentice Clock in / out Clock-watcher Dead-end job Dismiss Employment Employment Freelance Get stuck in a rut Grind Hack-work Holiday entitlement Increments Job-share

Labour Lucrative Manual Maternity (paternity) leave Notice Occupation Opening Opposite-number Overtime Piece-work payment Position Promote Promotion Rapport Redundancy Resign Salary

Self-employed Shift Shift-work Stint Toil To be a high-flier To be demoted To dismiss To have a drive To reach (to hit) a glass ceiling To resign Trade Trial period Vacancy Vocation Vocational

Categorize the given topical vocabulary. Continue the list and present the vocabulary (make use of sche­mes, charts, tables, diagrams, etc.).

Learn the necessary vocabulary and complete the list.

Working hours are very different in different countries. In the English-speaking world, people who work full-time regular hours are said to have a nine-to-five job, even if they don't work exactly from 9 am to 5 pm. People with flexible working hours are free, within limits, to work when they want, as long as they do a minimum number of hours. This is known in Britain as flexitime and in the US as flextime. Another flexible arrangement is to work part-time and share a job with someone else. This is called job-sharing.

If you commute to work, you live outside a city centre and travel to work there everyday. If you do this you are a commuter and you take part in the activity known as commuting. Teleworkers are people who work from home using phones, computers and fax machines. This is teleworking or telecommuting. A telecottage is a building in the country with the equipment necessary for telecommuting, shared by people who work in this way.

Apart from the salary, employers may offer a benefits package containing a number of fringe benefits, or, more informally perks, such as a company car. A lot of people find work by looking at job advertisements in newspapers. A few people are headhunted. Headhunters search for executives with specialist skills and try to persuade them to leave their current job to go to work for a new employer, perhaps by offering them better pay and benefits. If someone is told to leave their job, especially if their employers say they have done something wrong, they are dismissed. More informal ways of talking about a dismissal are to say that the person has been fired or sacked or given the sack.

If someone feels that they have lost their job unfairly, they may take their case to a tribunal and sue or make a claim against their former employers for unfair dismissal.

If an organisation gets rid of employees because they are no longer needed, it lays them off or makes them redundant.

Companies doing this sometimes talk about downsizing, rightsizing or letting employees go. They may say that they are overstaffed: they have too many employees and need to make cuts in the payroll or the workforce, the total number of people they employ.

When employees have no choice, the redundancies are compulsory. But where employees can choose to leave, redundancies are voluntary. The payroll can also be reduced by natural wastage, with employees leaving over a period of time for the usual reasons: retirement, moving to another job, and so on.

When a lot of redundancies are involved, journalists talk about jobs being cut or axed, with mass layoffs or massive layoffs. Employees made redundant get the axe.

People who are laid off may receive compensation in the form of a redundancy payment, pay-off or payout, redun­dancy pay or, especially in American English, a severance payment.

Unemployment benefit or jobless benefit is also called, informally, the dole. People receiving it are on the dole. If you lose your job you join the dole queue. Unemployment benefit and dole queue are used mainly in British English. Unemployment benefit is also called jobless benefit, especially in American English.

Unemployed people are often referred to in the media as jobless. Jobless people looking for work are job-seekers or job-hunters and, in Britain, receive money from the state called job-seeker's allowance.