雇用者 - Employer or Employee?

[rodan]

I actually remember someone asking about this in the short questions thread!
Maybe the resulting discussion can help some:

The quick or short Language Questions Thread (not grammar)

How come 雇用者 is translated as both employer and employee on WK and jisho? Sounds pretty troublesome. This is probably not used in hiring contracts describing responsiblities of each party.

Looks like I found some alternatives, both ambiguous and unambiguous, via wikipedia:

The quick or short Language Questions Thread (not grammar)

I dunno if this really answers the “how come” question, but wikipedia has a rundown of words used to describe either or both parties: 雇用する側は雇い主（やといぬし）・使用者（しようしゃ）、雇用される側は被用者（ひようしゃ）・使用人（しようにん）・従業員（じゅうぎょういん）などと呼ばれる。また、両方の意味で使われる言葉として雇用者（こようしゃ）・雇い人（やといにん）というものもある。 So it does sound like it can mean either. I suppose the answer to “how come” is just because of how the word is made up - 雇用者 could be a 雇用する者 or a 雇用される者, so to speak. And yeah, if the distinction was critical or not obvious through c…