rockSlayerThere is no such thing as "unskilled labor"
Any labor is skilled labor. The only difference is training time.
agent_flounderI think that’s a far more useful way to look at it than a simple binary of skilled and unskilled.
I’m a bit fuzzy on how the continuum really relates to wage, because ultimately it’s a question of supply and demand.
I guess if you have a rarer skill because it takes longer and is harder to acquire proficiency at, demand will be higher so you won’t go for jobs that are easier to acquire the skill for, thus, jobs with a bigger supply of workers? And so that drives the pay offered.
I’m a good example of the second half of your comment. I’m kind of a sysadmin for linux systems. I’m pretty OK at it, but far from an expert. However, the systems I administer are far from average. They’re highly specialized server clusters built for a highly specialized task, in a highly specialized work environment. Most people don’t care about these kind of systems, so the list of potential employers is pretty small for me. But those who need the skills involved are willing to pay extremely well. I got here because I just so happens to be a computer guy who has worked with these systems a lot, and I know every component pretty well, to the point where I recently got poached by a competitor. The result is that I have the same pay grade as the doctors in my tiny town, but I get to literally sleep on the job as long as things are running smoothly.
Hopefully my doctor finished hischool, though.
Flying SquidI have never heard of a job that required no training in order to do it. That’s learning a skill. And if you’ve already trained yourself in how to do it, you’ve still learned a skill. I can’t think of a job that you can do without any training whatsoever.
You and I have definitely worked for totally different companies then.
Where have you worked where a job requires absolutely no training whatsoever?
It’s a matter of degree. Comparing the training of a delivery driver to that of a doctor or professor is, frankly, just stupid.
No one made such a comparison. Again- any training or education is learning a skill. It doesn’t matter if it’s 8 years in a university or 8 hours as a dishwasher. There is no job I can think of that doesn’t require at least some training or education. Can you?
Jobs with minimal training required are unskilled labor.
Was that so hard to understand?
“Minimal training” = learning a skill.
It is skilled labor.
Fucking breathing is skilled labor by your definition.
No. Being trained to do something is learning a skill. It’s that simple. I’m not sure why that isn’t clear to you yet. How many more times do I need to repeat it?
Ok fine. We want to be obtuse. Let’s separate it into minimally skilled and more skilled.
That would be more accurate than what is used now. Why are you so hostile against the idea that people with less skill than you still have skill? It seems like snobbery to me.
Because yall are being pedantic. You know exactly what unskilled labor refers to. But because you want to be pedantic we have to change words to say the exact same thing. Not for a good reason… just cause. I guess all the minimally skilled people were offended?
Yes, I know what the term refers to the same way I know what the term ‘stewardess’ means, but we decided that was a sexist term, so now we say ‘flight attendant.’ Language can change. Language that is obviously classist can definitely change. Changing obviously classist language should be done.
And if you still don’t agree, perhaps you could tell me where the dividing line is, specifically, between ‘skilled’ and ‘unskilled.’ You seem to believe these have precise definitions, so exactly how much training is required to make one skilled?
Lol, ok. Fine, I’ll call them low skilled jobs. I’m sure that’s so much better, right? It almost sounds worse, but if that’s what your want…
Again, what is your problem with people who have jobs that require less skill than yours? Because the only explanation I can come up with is just snobbery.
I have no problem with them at all. What is your problem with having language that provides details about the type of work someone does?
You could have fooled me.
The difference is if you require a degree or license or some other certification of non-career training prior to being considered for the job.
It sounds like you’re taking issue with the terminology and not the concept.
Unskilled labor being the kind you learn on the job and any normal human can be trained to do, vetsus skilled labor that requires university/apprenticeship/trade school. It’s hours or days of training compared to years of specialized training.
I don’t like this particular turn of phrase either, but here we are.
Yes, that’s what the investor class thinks. They are wrong.
Yeah I doubt it. I can flip any burger you got, you come design my machine learning algorithms.
If you think you can just walk into any fast food restaurant and start working without anyone showing you what to do, you’re naïve. No, of course it doesn’t take as much training as working on computers. No one said it did. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a skill to be trained to use one of those machines.
You and the investor class may think that the only people who are skilled in the labor world went through four years of college, but that is not what a skill is.
That’s also not what “skilled labor” means as a term of art, hence my first comment.
Yes, I know, and I am saying that term is wrong and should not be used. All kinds of ‘terms of art’ have been abandoned because they’re bad terms.
“How much am I getting paid?”
“It’s unskilled labour, so not much.”
“Then I’ll do something else that pays more.”
“But then this won’t get done!”
“You can do it yourself.”
“I’m too important for this!”
“So the work is not important?”
“It’s very important, it needs to be done or we’ll be in shit up to our necks!”
“So pay me as much as this is important.”
"I can’t, it’s unskilled labour."
- a tale as old as time itself.
This is why they’re legalizing child labor.
The crux is here.
Then I’ll do something else that pays more.
What separates skilled from unskilled labor is that the unskilled labor force have no skills to do something else that pays more.
While I support the idea that every job should pay a living wage, the idea that there shouldn’t be a difference in pay based on the rarity of the skillset of the employee of question just isn’t workable in am open market society.
If we’re taking about making the till scanner in the shop go beep, yeah, that doesn’t take extensive training and can be done by the next hungover 16 year old who stumbles in off the street. I’ve been that 16 year old, it was great.
This image is daft, assuming the other trades are unskilled. They’re undesirable, sure, but you can’t do them with 15 mins of training and another hungover moron in the back office “supervising”.
Another approach is to divide unpleasant work evenly under everyone who can do it like in the novel The Dispossessed. This will be less efficient since each one needs to acquire the skill and won’t reach perfection because they don’t stay long enough but to hell with efficiency.
So yes, it is skilled labor and if you call it “unskilled”, you have no excuse not to do it from time to time.
Patapon EnjoyerThere’s also the fact manual labor is seem by Anarresti as something to be proud of.
Also, Chevek doesn’t mention it in the book, but in reality some people simply enjoy hard jobs and would gladily do them if they can make a good living out of them.
True but I doubt it would be enough.
Except it’s literally just an economics term referring to positions that can be reasonably learned through on the job training with little or no prior experience.
Stuff like this just muddies and distracts the conversation from the true issue, which is that those jobs deserve a living wage.
Yeah I don’t care if the jobs are literally no skill, that shouldn’t matter when it comes to paying a living wage.
Also, unskilled jobs still end up generating experienced laborers who are worth being compensated for that experience.
The whole point of the term unskilled labor is that it isn’t.
If you’re on an assembly line and you’re putting part A into box B, it takes an afternoon to learn and you’ll be about as fast as someone who’s being doing it for 30 years.
Either part A is in box B or it isn’t. The difference between the worst person and the best person that’s still worth employing is very small, and probably can’t be trained.
You don’t pay extra for someone with experience putting part A into box B.
But they should be paid a living wage.
If that’s all a job entails, I’d feel morally obligated to automate it.
It’s far more complicated, what is the ROI on the multimillion dollar robot to do pick and place, how long before a packaging or dimension change requires reprogramming, or you stop making part B and instead make part C that the robot needs to be adapted for. How much does labor cost.
There’s a quite a few parameters to analyze, but it is frequently cheaper and makes sense not to automate it, and instead pay someone to stand at an assembly line instead.
But then the whole automation thing…. Good for skilled labor (the people building and programming robots and automated assembly lines), not good for unskilled labor. If you’re not qualified or unable to learn another skill, it’s one more job that disappears.
The only thing that matters is how many hours it takes up in a persons day.
Well don’t you think we should fix misnomers? Also, “it’s an official term” is a poor excuse. Terms change and evolve all of the time.
Tons of jobs can be taught with on the job training with little to no experience. There’s a reason unskilled labor typically refers to food service and blue collar work, while white collar jobs are typically considered entry level.
We can fix two things by the way. Complaining about multiple issues under a larger umbrella doesn’t “muddy the water.”
For the record, I don’t totally disagree with you, but don’t you think capitalists at the top would rather people spend their energy arguing about the economic terminology rather than fighting for workers rights?
They would happily call it just about anything if it meant not paying workers more.
ToldryWhich alternative term do you propose?
EldritchYou’ve literally just described every job that exists everywhere. It’s a bullshit term to other and denigrate certain groups.
A lot of jobs can’t be learnt on the fly. They either need prior training, or significant on the job or prior to work training. Those jobs will, by their nature earn a premium (basic supply and demand).
There will always be low skill jobs, and that’s ok. The issue is that they are now so poorly paid that you can’t survive on them.
E.g. an office janitor is an unskilled job. It’s easy to get a new person up to speed on-the-fly. A janitor on a medical ward is low skilled. They require more training, but it can be on the job. Cleaning a surgery theatre is a skilled job. It requires a significant baseline of knowledge to do it right. This requires off the job training.
None are bad jobs, and all should be paid well enough to live on. However, the more specialist roles should also earn more, since they have higher requirements.
So you’re saying training isn’t training? That’s a bold claim. Can you prove it?
And if you think an office janitor is an unskilled job. You’ve never met many good custodians. It’s easy for anyone to go into any field and do a shit job. But whether or not you acknowledge it. Being good at something takes skill regardless of what it is. Even the migrants picking fruit in American fields are highly skilled. Or are you telling me that in less than a single season or week you could match or better them?
I think you’ve forgotten about pilots and surgeons and such… not exactly OJT material.
oddsbodkinsI think you made a non-sequitur. They never said anything about that. Simply pointed out how all jobs require knowledge and training of some sort to be good at them. Perhaps in the future you should debate in good faith and not create straw men to push a false narrative.
You could hypothetically have on-the-job training for a surgeon, but it takes a lot longer and gets very expensive. That’s probably why they divide it up into pre-med, med school, internships, fellowships, etc. That and it means that companies don’t have to absorb all of the cost of training new surgeons.
Lol sure. Are you ready to be an architect or a biochemist or an ironworker or a paramedic?
After a decent apprenticeship, a lot of people would.
An apprenticeship is enough to be a biochemist? Lmao go touch some grass.
Training is training regardless of how you receive it isn’t it? Perhaps you should take your own advice.
An unskilled job can be learned in an afternoon. That’s the difference.
Said someone who’s never mastered it. I have a college education myself. And work in IT. I’m just not that much of an egoist to disrespect people like you do. I’ve met truly skilled and great people doing menial jobs and not being compensated enough. You wouldn’t last a week at most of these jobs. You feel you could master in an afternoon. Simply because you’d be dealing with people like yourself.
I don’t know why you think calling something an unskilled job is more derogatory than a menial job.
But can anyone learn your job in an afternoon? No.
You can replace a factory line worker with literally almost any human, you can’t be replaced by anyone who doesn’t have a background in IT, at least without months or years of training.
That’s not ego it’s just reality.
It doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a living wage. But if you’re gushing about how everyone is a skilled laborer while talking to someone who makes 1/10th what you do they’re probably going to think you’re a dick.
No one is claiming that it’s not possible to hone your floorsweeping skills over the course of 50 years and become a sweeper yoda. What they are saying though, is that the difference between the yoda and the apprentice is neglibile from a customers perspective. That’s just factual, if the apprentice wasn’t good enough for the average client, the yodas would be in high demand and be able to set their own rates, thus becoming skilled labor.