人手

• Pinyin: rén shǒu
• Hanzi breakdown: 人 = 人 (person); 手 = 手 (hand — pictograph of a hand with five fingers; extended: a worker)

Meaning

Manpower; staff; available workers. Refers to the number of people available or needed to carry out work, especially when discussing shortages or allocation.

Common in 人手不足 (understaffed), 人手紧张 (short-handed), 人手短缺 (manpower shortage), 招募人手 (recruit workers). More concrete than 人力 (manpower as an abstract resource) — 人手 counts actual individuals available for a task.

Examples

1. 节假日期间客流量激增，餐厅人手严重不足，经理不得不亲自上阵帮忙传菜和招待顾客。 During the holiday rush, customer traffic surged and the restaurant was severely short-staffed, so the manager had to jump in personally to run food and greet customers.
2. 工程项目工期紧迫，施工队决定临时招募额外人手，以确保能够按期完工交付。 With the project schedule tight, the construction team decided to temporarily recruit extra workers to ensure the job could be completed and delivered on time.
3. 农忙季节，农村地区普遍面临人手短缺的困境，许多农户不得不花高价雇请外地务工人员协助收割。 During the busy farming season, rural areas often face labor shortages, and many farmers have no choice but to pay high wages to hire migrant workers from other regions to help with the harvest.

Usage Guide

Context: business, labour, agriculture, operations

Tone: neutral

Do Say

• 目前仓库备货任务量远超预期，现有人手远远不够，仓储主管请求公司紧急调配至少二十名临时工支援。(The current warehouse stocking workload far exceeds expectations, and the existing workforce is nowhere near sufficient; the warehouse supervisor has requested the company to urgently deploy at least twenty temporary workers in support.)
• 春节前夕，快递行业进入年度业务高峰期，各大物流公司纷纷加大人手招募力度，以应对爆发式增长的包裹量。(On the eve of the Spring Festival, the express delivery industry enters its annual peak season; major logistics companies have stepped up manpower recruitment to cope with the explosive surge in parcel volumes.)

Don't Say

• 我需要人手帮忙 — use 我需要人手来帮忙 or 我需要有人帮忙; 人手 functions as a noun meaning available workers, not as a general pronoun for a 'person to help'

Origin & History

人 (person) + 手 (hand — the hand as the instrument of labour; extended: a working person)

Cultural Context

Generation: All ages

Social background: Universal