An Arbeitnehmer (employee) is a “work taker” , an Arbeitgeber (employer) a “work giver”. Some German think (overthink imho), that this is backward. After all, it’s the employee who does the work, the employer does not, just reaps the lion share of the profits generated by said work.
It’s mostly a case of “No shit sherlock, language isn’t logical”.
Or rather, it very likely comes from the time when Arbeit was assigned, while the vast majority of people had no say about it at all.
