An outworker is the person who does that home work for a company: paid by the piece, often historically a woman, stitching or assembling at home without a place on the factory floor. The short dictionary line talks about the work; the word itself names the worker. Same world as outwork. In today’s talk people may say homeworker, freelancer, or 代工, but outworker is the older British term, a little dusty now and mainly in history or labour writing. It does not mean someone who works outdoors — that guess is fair, and wrong. The out- is “out of the workshop,” not “out in the weather.”