Refers to a person engaged in physical or manual labor, often at a construction site, factory, or similar setting. Typically implies a blue-collar role.
Workers are wearing safety helmets at the construction site.
Many workers at this factory work the night shift.
作業員 specifically refers to someone doing hands-on or on-site work like construction or factory tasks, whereas ワーカー is a general, often white-collar or service-oriented term.
作業員 refers to a general manual laborer at any worksite, whereas 工員 specifically denotes a factory employee.
作業員 refers to a worker doing a specific manual task (e.g. at a construction site), a narrower use than the general term 労働者.
作業員 is the ordinary modern word for a manual worker, while 工作員 in its rare literal sense refers to someone building or constructing something, and in its common sense means a covert agent.
Compound of 作業 (work, operation) and 員 (member, personnel). The word straightforwardly means 'personnel engaged in operations'.