JOB vs. WORK

Good morning / afternoon / evening everyone, depending on when you are reading this. Welcome back to the Daily Vitamin. I hope you had a great weekend!

One of our veteran Daily Vitamin recipients, Martha, suggested we look at the difference between the words work and job. I think it's a wonderful suggestion because it's true that these words cause lots of confusion amongst English students. Job (noun) and work (noun) have the same meaning: "an activity that a person does to earn money." However, there are some differences to keep in mind:

I) Job is ALWAYS a noun and work can be a noun or a verb.

Example 1: Job (noun)
I'm very happy. I just started my new job and I love it!

Example 2: Work (as a verb)
He has a wonderful job but he works so many hours that he never sees his children.

Example 3: Work (as a noun)
I'm looking for work in the banking sector.

II) Job is a count noun (1 job, 2 jobs, 3 jobs, etc.) and work is a non-count noun.

Example 4:
I'm looking for work after being fired from the last three jobs I had.

As you can see, these nouns ARE NOT interchangeable in Example 4. You CANNOT say "the last three works I had." However, we could replace the non-count noun work in Example 3 for the count noun job:

Example 3 (bis):
I'm looking for a job in the banking sector.

Can you use each of these words in your own original sentences? You can post your sentences on one of our social media sites (Facebook or Twitter) and we will give you feedback about your sentence as soon as possible.

All the best!