What does reemployment mean?
Reemployment is the hiring of a person again after a period of unemployment, redundancy, dismissal, or some other interruption in employment. It can describe the process itself, as in a government reemployment programme, or the condition of being employed again. The term is especially common in discussions of vocational training, workforce development, and assistance for displaced or redundant workers. Unlike reinstatement, which often suggests restoring a person to a previous position, reemployment generally means taking on someone in a new job or, more broadly, returning them to employment. In everyday conversation, people may simply say that someone has “got a new job,” but reemployment is more useful in formal and institutional contexts because it highlights the transition from unemployment back into work. The word is also used in discussions of rehabilitation and the reintegration of people into the labour market.
nounThe act of employing someone again after a period of unemployment or after their employment has ended. It also refers to the state of being employed again.
- The act of employing someone again after a period of unemployment or termination, especially as part of a retraining, placement, or public employment programme.
- The state or condition of being employed again.
"The programme offers training and reemployment for workers whose jobs have been displaced."
"The local authority runs a scheme to support the reemployment of redundant workers."
"After months of job searching, she celebrated her reemployment at a local hospital."
Reemployment turns the end of a job into a beginning: it names the process of getting back into work.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does reemployment come from?
Reemployment was formed in English by combining the prefix re-, meaning “again,” with employment. Employment itself comes through Old French employement, from employer, ultimately derived from the Latin implicare, meaning “to involve” or “imply.” The same Latin root also underlies words such as application, implication, andploy. The prefix re- is common in English for a repeated or renewed action and appears in many modern terms describing repetition, including reemployment.
Related word forms
How reemployment is actually used
Usually formal or institutional, especially when referring to government-funded programmes, retraining, and the matching of workers with new jobs. In British usage, “reemployment” is sometimes written as “re-employment,” although the unhyphenated form is also standard.
Easily confused with reemployment
Reemployment means being employed again after a period without work, whereas unemployment means not having a job.
Reemployment generally refers to a new hiring after employment has ended, while reinstatement commonly means restoring someone to their former position or status.