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White-collar worker is an idiom referring to a salaried professional or a person whose job is clerical in nature, as opposed to a blue-collar worker whose job is more in line with manual labor. White-collar work is an informal term as there is no accepted enumeration of white-collar jobs to the extent that it is typically defined as any job that is not blue-collar.

The term 'white-collar' derives from the clerical collar of a priest's clothing. Prior to the rise of separate professional and mercantile classes, priests not only performed ecclesiastical duties, but also served as physicians, lawyers, scribes, and accountants: often, they were the only literate members of a society in which others could not read or write.

The proportion of white collar workers steadily increased from 17% of employees in 1900 to 59.4% of employees having white-collar jobs in 1998. This is likely due to the recent technological revolution, and changes in the economic structure of the United States.

Formerly a minority in the agrarian and early industrial societies, they have become a majority in industrialized countries. The recent technological revolution has created disproportionately more desk jobs, and lessened the number of employees doing manual work in factories. Generally, the pay rate is higher among white-collar workers, although many of the "white-collar" workers are not necessarily upper-middle class or of privilege as the term once implied. For example, many jobs in the ever growing service sector have a high dress code despite their low pay, whereas ironically, many skilled manual trades-people earn comfortable middle-class salaries, although the jobs may be increasingly scarce.

Also, an increasing number of companies do not have any blue-collar workers because they do not physically manufacture anything within their home country, but instead have an entire hierarchy of white-collar desk workers who mostly dress the same.^{[citation needed]} In this type of corporate environment, the ranking is less signified by the clothing, but may be strikingly apparent by the quality of the work space, the responsibilities delegated, the privileges granted, and by the salary itself.

In recent times workers have had varying degrees of latitude about their choice of dress. Dress codes can range from relaxed - with employees allowed to wear jeans and street clothes — up to traditional office attire. Many companies today operate in a business casual environment — where employees are required to wear dress pants (business trousers) or skirts and a shirt with a collar. Because of this, not all what would be called white-collar workers in fact wear the traditional white shirt and tie.

As an example of workspace contrast, the higher ranking executives may have large corner offices with impressive views and expensive furnishings, where the lesser ranked desk clerks may share small, windowless cubicles with plain utilitarian furniture. As an example of the differing responsibilities, the higher ranked worker will usually have a more broad and fundamental responsibility in the company whereas the subordinates will be delegated more specific, and limited tasks. The cases of differing privilege and salary speak for themselves.

At some companies, the "white-collar employees" also on occasion perform "blue-collar" tasks (or vice versa), and even change their clothing to perform the distinctive roles, i.e., dressing up or dressing down as the case requires. This is common in the food service industry. An example would be a manager at a restaurant who may wear more formal clothing than lower-ranked employees, yet still sometimes assist with cooking food or taking customers' orders. Employees of event-catering companies often wear formal clothing when serving food.

As salaried employees, white-collar workers are sometimes members of white-collar labor unions and they can resort to strike action to settle grievances with their employers, when collective bargaining fails. This is far more the case in Europe than in the United States, where less than 10 percent of all private sector employees are union members. White-collar workers have a reputation for being skeptical or opposed to unions, and tend to see their advancement in work as tied to their reaching corporate goals rather than in union membership.

The American sociologist C. Wright Mills conducted a major study of the white-collar workers in White Collar-The American Middle Class (1951). He claimed that alienation among the white-collar workers was high, because they were not only selling their time but also had to sell their personality with a "smile on their faces", referring to insurance sales people like his own father.

• aristocracy
• high culture
• six-figure income
• pink collar
• upper class
• white-collar crime
• salaryman
• gold-collar worker
• clear collar
• blue collar
• Grey collar
• C. Wright Mills

• The White Collar Warrior: An On-Line Journal Dedicated To White Collar Rights (daily blog)