make-work

An activity or task assigned or undertaken for the sake of activity or busy-ness, rather than because of a particular need.

Noun

  1. An activity or task assigned or undertaken for the sake of activity or busy-ness, rather than because of a particular need.
    • I once described this rather vulgarly as a Euro-wanking make-work project and I do not resile from that. - 2011 November 10, Lord Gilbert, House of Lords Hansard:
    • They are more sympathetic to immigration, free markets, and free trade, and less sympathetic to protectionism, make-work policies, and government intervention in business. - 2011, Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our...
    • In that COVID era, in June of 2020, I interviewed the anthropologist David Graeber, author of Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, a few months ahead of his untimely death. His book had suggested that many modern jobs were...

Origin

From make + work.

Forms

makework

Related

activity trap busy work