Piecework is a way of paying someone: you get money for each thing you finish, not for the hours you sit there. Make twenty shirts, get paid for twenty shirts — even if it took you four hours or fourteen. Factories, sewing rooms, farms, and some home jobs still use it; so do some writers who are paid by the article. Though actually, people argue about it a lot. Bosses like it because a fast worker costs them no extra time. Workers like it when they are quick — and hate it when the price per piece is so low that you have to rush, or when a broken machine means you earn nothing that hour. It is not a salary, and it is not hourly pay. And it is not the same as “a piece of work”, which just means a job, or, in angry talk, a difficult person.

計件工作、論件計酬