SKILLED WORKER

An employee who possesses a thorough, comprehensive knowledge of the job processes, learned through apprenticeship training, and who has the ability to exercise independent judgment.

The skilled worker is the top category of workers in the industrial hierarchy, above the "semi skilled worker" who is above the "unskilled worker." Plumbers, electricians, machinists, and automobile mechanics are skilled workers.

The skilled worker "has a high degree of manual dexterity, and, in some instances, extensive responsibility for valuable product or equipment. Workers in these occupations usually become qualified by serving apprenticeships or extensive training periods."
(Termium, Skilled Worker, visited 2011-09-02)

However, in recent publications, "skilled worker" is broadly defined as any employee with higher education, including non-manual workers who attended university, clerical staff.

Evolution of the Labour Force

"The demand for professionals and skilled workers has risen while in effect displacing large numbers of the low-skilled. Such displacement appears to have been most pronounced in manufacturing. In the member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), manufacturing employment as a whole has shrunk, but all of the decline has centered on low-skilled workers; skilled worker jobs have remained constant, the changing occupational profile of the workforce being transformed toward upskilling. White-collar jobs, too, have been displaced, being substituted, where feasible, by computers."
(U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, World Employment Situation, v. 123. No. 1, 2000, visited 2009-09-02)