Arbetare

Arbetare is a Swedish noun meaning a person who works, typically a manual or blue-collar worker. The term denotes employment or occupation rather than a specific job title, and it is often used to distinguish physical or industrial workers from white-collar professionals and civil servants. In historical contexts, arbeta and arbetare were central to descriptions of the working class and to discussions of social and economic organization.

The word derives from arbete, work, with the agent suffix -are, a common pattern in Swedish for names of people who perform a task, comparable to other languages' worker terms. The concept of arbetare played a prominent role during Sweden's industrialization, when factory labor and construction work expanded and labor movements formed. Unions and political movements campaigned for improved wages, shorter hours, safer conditions, and the right to organize.

In modern Swedish usage, arbetare remains a present-day category in statistics and discourse, but the line between arbetare and other employed groups is less rigid. It is commonly used to refer to people employed in factories, workshops, and similar settings, and it is contrasted with tjänstemän (white-collar employees). Compound forms such as industriarbetare and byggnadsarbetare specify industrial or construction work. The term also appears in cultural and political discussions about labor rights, social protection, and the structure of the labor market.

Related topics include labor unions, collective bargaining, industrial history, and the Swedish welfare state.