In honor of Labor Day, it’s fitting to celebrate by recognizing all the hard work Americans participate in every day, especially in physically demanding industries.
The public holiday, celebrated on the first Monday of September, celebrates the American labor movement and the strength and prosperity workers bring to America.
“It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people,” famous 18th-century economist Adam Smith wrote in his “Wealth of Nations.” (RELATED: Think Labor Day Was Always Purely Secular? Think Again)
Americans celebrate Labor Day in mainland U.S., Puerto Rico, the Canal Zone and the Virgin Islands. Canada also celebrates its Labour Day on the first Monday in September.
Here are some photos that show how hard Americans all around the country work every day:
Construction workers:
There were roughly 10.3 million U.S. construction workers in 2016, according to The Statistics Portal. Their combined wages and salaries totaled approximately $792.5 billion in 2016.
Steel workers:
There are roughly 140,000 steelworkers in America, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute, and approximately 6.5 million workers in steel-consuming manufacturing. There were 83,000 steel mill and blast furnace workers in the U.S. in 2017.
Most of the world celebrates Labor Day on “International Workers’ Day” May 1, according to Forbes. The day for some countries was chosen to commemorate 11 people who died in Chicago’s Haymarket Bombing at a labor rally in 1886, but the U.S. government decided to distance itself from the violent event, and pushed the holiday back for September.
America’s “Labor Day” became a federal holiday in 1894.
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