What does reemploy mean?
Reemploy is a verb meaning to employ someone again, most commonly a former employee. It is often used in workplace, public-sector, and institutional contexts, as in reemploying laid-off workers or returning someone to a previous position. The word carries a practical and slightly formal tone: it suggests that an earlier employment relationship is being resumed or that a person is being given another opportunity to work. Reemploy can also refer more broadly to putting a person back into a role, although that use is less frequent. The related noun reemployment describes the act or condition of employing someone again. While rehire is widely understood and especially common in American English, reemploy gives the process a more formal and official tone. The word is useful when describing situations in which former workers, laid-off staff, or people returning to an institution resume their employment.
verbTo employ someone again, especially a former employee. It can also mean to put a person or group back into a job, role, or position.
- To employ someone again, especially a person who previously worked for the same organization.
- To return someone to a position, role, or other form of work.
"The company decided to reemploy several workers who had been laid off during the recession."
"After the project ended, the firm reemployed several experienced engineers."
"The council voted to reemploy the library worker when funding became available."
Reemploy means a job journey can loop back around: the former worker gets another chance to contribute.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does reemploy come from?
Reemploy combines the prefix re-, meaning again, with employ, from the French employer, derived from the Latin implicare, meaning to involve or fold in. English employed the word in the sense of taking someone into service or giving someone work from the early 16th century. The prefixed form reemploy developed later to express the idea of employing someone again, and it is closely related cognates such as employer, employee, and unemployment.
Related word forms
How reemploy is actually used
Reemploy is formal and can sound administrative or institutional. It is less common than the simpler term rehire, particularly in informal and North American contexts.
Easily confused with reemploy
Reemploy is the more formal term for employing someone again, while rehire is especially common in American usage and often implies returning a former employee to work.