those having professions free of hard labor, office and professional workers, managerial and clerical apparatus
of or designating salaried professional or clerical work or workers; "the coal miner's son aspired to a white-collar occupation as a bookkeeper
White-collar workers work in offices rather than doing physical work such as making things in factories or building things. White-collar workers now work longer hours. blue-collar
White-collar crime is committed by people who work in offices, and involves stealing money secretly from companies or the government, or getting money in an illegal way
Within the field of criminology, white-collar crime or 'incorporated governance' has been defined by Edwin Sutherland "...as a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation." Sutherland was a proponent of Symbolic Interactionism, and believed that criminal behaviour was learned from interpersonal interaction with others. White-collar crime therefore overlaps with corporate crime because the opportunity for fraud, bribery, insider trading, embezzlement, computer crime, and forgery is more available to white-collar employees
() From the color of dress shirts worn by professional and clerical workers, as opposed to the rugged denim and chambray shirts normally worn by manual workers.