“Laborers” or “Labourers”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 3 prefer “laborers” and 9 prefer “labourers”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	laborers	labourers	Preference
United States	98	2	“laborers”
United Kingdom	10	90	“labourers”
India	9	91	“labourers”
Philippines	91	9	“laborers”
Canada	28	72	“labourers”
Australia	10	90	“labourers”
Liberia	100	0	“laborers”
Ireland	0	100	“labourers”
New Zealand	18	82	“labourers”
Jamaica	17	83	“labourers”
Trinidad & Tobago	14	86	“labourers”
Guyana	0	100	“labourers”

Usage

Examples in context

Real sentences for each spelling. Hover an example to copy it.

“laborers”

…improve the lives of urban laborers and worked towards increasing the…
…was reducing the need for laborers.
Agricultural laborers engaged in everyday activities such…
…Japs, Italians, and other similar laborers are."
…immigration of, mainly Italian, day laborers, the population began to grow.
…factory were used as forced laborers, mainly working in carpentry and
…restricted the immigration of forced laborers coming from Asia.
…per month of $17.20; 4 laborers, at an average pay per…
…of other tribes as slave laborers.
…peasantry served as the farmers, laborers and were forced to pay…

“labourers”

The following ships brought labourers to Sydney.
…230 cultivators, 642 main agricultural labourers, 809 in house hold industries,…
…1 hectare) 25.62% and agricultural labourers 59.40%.
…and the Labourer's Union to 2,250.
Some Indian labourers broke their contracts before the…
…the former enslaved Africans with labourers from other parts of the
…and southern provinces, followed by labourers from northern and western regions,…
…) construction companies employ low-wage labourers from Asia for up to…
…they could pay their agricultural labourers higher wages.
…hectare) 25,590 (41.10%) and agricultural labourers 25,202 (40.47%).

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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