在职
zàizhí · HSK 7
be on the job
💼 在 = at + 职 = post/duty; to be at your post = on the job
在 means at or present, and 职 means post or duty. Together they mark someone currently at their post — actively employed, on the job rather than retired or laid off.
在 — earth 土 + phonetic 才
Originally a phono-semantic compound: 土 (earth) gives the meaning of a place or location, while 才 supplies the sound. It came to mean 'to be present/located at,' and now also serves as a grammatical marker for ongoing actions, like 'in the middle of doing.'