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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.
And you don’t think the ruling class weaponizes the terminology to prevent wage increases?
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.
You’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?
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.
No shit, the apprenticeship is the exact thing we claim makes a difference.
We can argue where exactly we should draw the line: Is a two year apprenticeship required to qualify as skilled labor? Or is 6 months enough already? Maybe even a one month training course can be considered enough to learn a skill. But the fact is that some jobs require more training than others. And this distinction is worth making in some situations.
I worked in unskilled Labor before, a few minutes teaching so I know what to do, maybe two hours supervised to make sure I don’t fuck up and that’s it.
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.
I don’t understand the need to dogpile on someone who is simply stating that jobs needn’t be divided by skill because all jobs need skills. Racking hay and stacking it up is a skill. Picking and sorting the good from the bad fruit or veggies is a skill. Interacting with mean and disrespectful people who couldn’t care less about your feelings and pretending to be friendly is a skill. Flipping burgers before someone yells at you for taking more than two minutes is a skill.
Obviously, their argument with the biochemist was wrong, and they were misguided, but why the need to pray on their downfall? It’s useless to divide jobs, because they all have skills.
I’ll keep my surgeons having gone to med school tyvm
They literally used to apprentice them. They still could. They don’t but they could.
Do you want a 19th century surgeon?
If I were in the 19th century? Sure. We could still train them that way today even with all the knowledge we now have. It’s only the knowledge that’s outmoded. Not the method of training.
The method of training has severe deficiencies including the absence of standardization. Also surgeons still have apprenticeship they just have to go to med school first
The current method of training has severe deficiencies as well. Often saddling people with 6 to 7 figures of debt. And in the medical field specifically having them work shifts defined by people originally hopped up on meth and cocaine. I’d take a well rested and healthy surgeon any day over one that’s sleep/stress/drug addled.
Oh and there were literal trade groups that set basic standards most times. Listen it’s your prerogative if you want to argue training isn’t training. It isn’t a very defensible position however.
“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 won’t, it’s just unskilled labour. WHY DOES NOBODY WANT TO WORK ANYMORE?”- 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 you honestly think you can man the cash register at McDonald’s competently with the same level and scope of training required to say design an RF frontend for cell signals or maybe remove someone’s Appendix, then you’re insane or lying to yourself.
“Unskilled” or now “low skilled” is a defined term. It doesn’t mean a goldfish can do it, and it doesn’t mean it isn’t important. It means that any reasonable human with a modicum of training can do the job well enough to produce valued output.
At my service jobs, I’d usually get an hour or two of training per area, and be watched for a few days or a week. Then let loose and that’s it. The guys I know that design those RF frontends not only have 4-8 years of physics and math intensive academia, but then work under senior designers for 10+ years learning and designing before leading their own project.
If you swap the Goodburger employee with the RF Designer, the designer will learn to sling burgers. The burger dude will accomplish nothing of value and probably be a net negative.
Nobody is saying anything of importance or requirement or paying wages. Taking a defined term and weaponizing it for a side cause makes anyone that knows what it actually means, roll their eyes and ignore the message you’re trying to convey. And in this case, it’s mostly unskilled workers trying to sound important to highly skilled workers. This means your intended audience is tuning the message out.
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Yes that’s why there’s typically more than one person per job title globally
It’s an actual term of definition though, it refers to work that doesn’t require prior training outside of the professional sphere.
Technically not all of those panels belong on the comic because a couple are trades which have their own training and licensing processes that aren’t on job learning.
A better naming scheme would be “pre-trained” and “job-trained” labor, but that doesn’t mean the concept itself is some sort of lie.
Yhe i mean when I worked in the ice-cream shop in the summer I didn’t need training.
But I’ve been studying macroeconomics for 3 years now and they say it’s not enough (lowkey gonna cry)
Edit: I’m not saying the ice-cream job wasn’t still intensive, but I could learn most tasks fast BC they are repetitive or by intuition.
Unskilled means you don’t need prior skills before being hired. That’s all.
It doesn’t mean someone doesn’t become proficient, or even great at the job while they have it.
I 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.
It’s a matter of degree. Comparing the training of a delivery driver or custodian to that of a doctor, engineer, or professor is, frankly, just stupid. This is what is meant by skilled versus unskilled labour.
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?
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.
You and I have definitely worked for totally different companies then.
Where have you worked where a job requires absolutely no training whatsoever?
Why is the fellow in the last panel having relations with that sandwich?
Amazon worker peeing in a bottle
Wendy’s employee busting nuts in the hotdogs
Oh look. They put farmers and tradesmen in with fucking Starbucks counter staff
It’s because this comic strip was made by a teller who is outraged that trades people and farmers require prior training and are not considered “unskilled” jobs (One where no prior training/certification/education is necessary)!
A serious answer: it’s more about supply and demand. Unskilled is work that nearly anyone can do. Lots of supply, so wages are lower than jobs where a smaller number of people can do it. I don’t think there’s any conspiracy there.
Any labor is skilled labor. The only difference is training time.
I 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.
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This is such a dumb take.
Even USSR had a difference between skilled and unskilled workers
Apparently you haven’t met any of my coworkers.
/s
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.
There’s also the fact manual labor is seem by Anarresti as something to be proud of.
Also, Chevek doesn’t directly 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.
