White-collar workers perform tasks which are less "laborious" yet often more highly paid than blue-collar workers, who do manual work. They are salaried professionals (such as some doctors or lawyers), as well as employees in administrative or clerical positions. In some studies managers are considered as part of the white-collar worker grouping, in others they are not. The name derives from the traditional white, button down shirts worn by workers of such professions.
Formerly a minority in the agrarian and early industrial societies, they have become a majority in industrialized countries. The recent technological revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution#Technological_revolutions) 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 class as the term once implied.
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.
A: Whitecollar crime is a term originally used to describe criminal activity by members of the upper classes in connection with their professions.
Whitecollar crimes are usually less violent than other crimes, but their effects can be just as devastating, such as in the recent Enron case.
Many whitecollar criminal defendants have had their cases damaged by something they said or did in the early stages of an investigation, before they were targeted or suspected.
It went from 17% of employees having whitecollar jobs in 1900 to 59.4% of employees having whitecollar jobs in 1998.
The growth in whitecollaremployment was directly associated with the increase in mass education within in the U.S. Formerly a minority in the agrarian and early industrial societies, they have become a majority in industrialized countries.
At some companies, the "whitecollaremployees" also on occasion perform "blue collar" tasks (or vice versa), and even change their clothing to perform the distinctive roles, ie.