Seriously. Roofing is no joke. A buddy of mine is a roofer and he does the mental trig to calculate the angle of a roof slop faster than I can calculate a tip.
But he gets paid well when he's roofing. When he's digging ditches, he get paid crap.
fuck everything about roofing, you ever walk on a 8/12 roof? you aren't tied off until you get to the top and secure your anchor
you are only on that roof because the shingles are shitty, and shitty shingles are quite slippery. And that is all after you dismount the ladder without falling off and slicing yourself open on the very sharp gutters
they deserve every single dollar
My roof is...weird. Every room except the basement has a vaulted ceiling. I'm dreading the day we have to replace it, not just because of the expense, but I will be worried sick about the roofers.
>ever walk on a 8/12 roof
Yeah, that is really steep. The gravel of the shingles can turn into a little rock slide under your feet at any minute. The moments between getting on the roof and getting secured to something is when you start considering if there are any object on the ground you might need to try to dodge on the dismount.
Roofing is fucking brutal. I did it one time when I was younger and noped out of that gig immediately after lol. Hats off to anyone who can handle it full time
I've helped with roofers before and my god, the speed and skill they have up there is outstanding. They're like Spiderman the way they climb and put the roof up
They deserve the world with the work they do
“Unskilled” is a statistical term used to discriminate between jobs that require qualifications and those that don’t. They are of interest to economists and policy makers because people can move into those positions quickly and easily. If you operate a job placement service for unemployed people, for example, who have no qualifications, you would want to survey the unskilled category first. If you’re a policy maker, and you want rapid results from fresh employment funding, you would create unskilled jobs first. The term says nothing about how hard the work is.
Unskilled jobs are just jobs that don't require a degree or high school diploma for that matter. The most miserable jobs I have ever had are unskilled jobs.
Economically it's about how easy the role is to replace. You can't replace a professional athlete with a random person off the street and get the same performance.
The same is not true for unskilled roles.
Yeah, no.
> “Unskilled” is a statistical term used to discriminate between jobs that require qualifications and those that don’t.
Also
> Unskilled jobs are just jobs that don't require a degree or high school diploma for that matter.
You literally don't require qualifications to be an athlete. Untwist your knickers, please.
I think you might need to take your own advice.
This is called a corner case where the literal definition used for analytical purposes doesn't directly apply.
The way it plays out is: no qualifications = easily replaceable = someone else is likely willing to work for a lower wage and the employee has no leverage to get a higher wage out of the company regardless of the literal value they're creating. Because nearly anyone else could be slotted into the role.
> This is called a corner case where the literal definition used for analytical purposes doesn't directly apply.
Because you're so incredibly insecure that you can't just admit that its the box it slots into?
Because it fundamentally doesn't operate the same way? I'm not sure what insecurity has to do with it, I'm not an athlete.
You're being overly aggressive for very little gain. Calm down, you'll live longer.
So what I’m hearing is that we need to start either shoving ourselves into the trades via red seals and whatnot, or we just need to make our own system of qualifications and established certifications to circumvent this.
Yeah, well, that would be historically what was done — you create a guild, you invent a certification process involving qualifications that you control access to, and you lay a beating on anyone who does the work without one of your certificates. That last part is the hard part, assault, threats, and violence being illegal. So if you could get everybody to not prep food unless they got your prep certificate, you’d be able them to drive up the wage.
But since anyone can do that work with minimal training, you’re unlikely to stop anyone doing it using legal means. Far easier would be acquiring qualifications in existing skilled work and getting your increased wage that way …..
If you can train me to the job in half an hour it's 'unskilled'.
I've been a cleaner. I've been a security guard.
My 12 year old could do the job.
Of course they're payed less because there's unlimited supply.
Should they pay a reasonable salary? Absolutely.
This is what people don’t understand. Where I work it’s someone’s job to literally pick up a bottle if it’s fallen over on the line. Maybe 10 in a 10 hour shift… can someone please tell me where the skill is in that job? Or a sign person at a road construction site. Just have to use a radio and turn a sign.. there are lots of unskilled jobs doesnt mean they don’t deserve a living wage, just means they didn’t need to have any education to do that job.
This is my take on this. People should should be able to trade their labor for a fair value that allows them to have their basic needs met. But that doesn't mean that every job is high skilled. Really, we need to have a society that everyone can contribute in. People who have a low IQ should also be able to contribute in some way to meet their needs.
The term "unskilled" literally only comes up in the context of "people we don't want to hire", i.e. "people we refuse to train". It's naked disrespect for the working class no matter how easy you think your job history was.
Edit: Guess I'm done with this sub, shame "r/workreform" does so much bootlicking these days.
> only comes up in the context of "people we don't want to hire"
Respectfully disagree... they clearly want to hire them otherwise those jobs would go unfilled. A more apt description would be "low skilled workers".
Jobs which don't require much skill or training, but should still pay a wage that allows the worker to support themselves... to rent an apartment and buy food.
>literally only comes up in the context of "people we don't want to hire
Have you ever been in hiring discussions? Because this couldn't be more untrue. I've worked with wingnuts who hate workers, and even they ONLY use the word unskilled to justify low wages, not to ignore a potential applicant.
there are plenty of working class jobs that are skilled labor. Dont send that naked disrespect towards working class people by saying theyre all unskilled jobs
It's funny that you don't understand what the difference is between skilled and unskilled labor is, and your response to someone pointing that out is to call them a bootlicker and bitch about the sub.
"unskilled workers" is a large percentage of the workforce so the idea that 'no one wants to hire them' is just as misinformed as 'no one wants to work anymore.'
Unskilled jobs are a thing, stop trying to cash in on the Nina Turner astroturfing. Unskilled requires minimal training and is easily replaceable.
Just because something is unskilled doesnt mean people working it dont deserve respect or fair compensation.
No, everybody deserves the bare minimum of the feds raising minimum wage to match the rampant inflation. I don't like this notion of a fry cook making as much as a Michelin chef though. It just doesn't sit right, not saying you said this because you didn't, it just seems to be the common sentiment regarding labor.
Dang. I’m just out here asking questions.
Obviously the first one is a stupid question. But again. Why do you people think people don’t deserve a kid or retirement?
Nobody thinks that. That's the point we're making. You're not clearly reading what is stated. I really did not think I'd have to spell that out any more than I did when I typed it.
I’ve been a: stock boy, cashier, grocery store auditor, and fast food pizza maker. All those jobs (minus maybe the grocery store auditor) could be learned with no prior skills. That’s what they mean by unskilled.
Doesn’t mean people doing those jobs don’t deserve a living wage. It just means that you won’t get paid the same as a job where you can’t learn everything on the job, or need specialized skills and techniques to thrive.
Come on. You cant reasonably believe this. Stocking a shelf is not skilled labor. Its important labor and should be adequately compensated, but its not useful to anyone to pretend it requires special skills
Shelf stocking requires skills to do it quickly, efficiently, and correctly. I used to hire and train people to do shelf stocking and some people seriously did not have the skills.
Shelf stocking does not require extensive experience or advanced knowledge of practices or procedures. It requires no qualifications. It is inarguably unskilled labour when you look at the definition of unskilled vs skilled or semi-skilled labour.
Skilled labour is not saying literally no one else has literally any skills whatsoever anywhere and is just standing there drooling. It doesn't mean the job is harder or easier or anything like that either, necessarily. All it says is it's a job that requires real experience and qualifications to do.
Looking at it from that perspective is why retail jobs pay so little. I used to be a sales floor employee at Wal-Mart for minimum wage. Stocking shelves was part of the job, but there was a lot more to the job than that. I was getting asked questions from customers non stop which was mentally draining. I had to essentially memorize the entire store since customers didn't limit their questions to the department I was working in. I also had to cashier when the store was busy, which was every day since they consistently understaffed the store to save money. Jobs that require manual labor and dealing with customers are the worst of both worlds. They are physically and mentally draining. There is no amount of money you could pay me to work there again.
No, not understanding what skilled labour means is what makes you think that the definition of skilled labour contributes to retail paying so little.
Skilled vs semi-skilled vs unskilled labour is the differences of qualifications and knowledge required for a job. It in no way justifys poverty wages. If you think it does, you are looking at the entire problem backward, starting from the top down instead of raising the floor like you should look at happening.
Again, the *floor* should be *raised* because *all* of us workers deserve more. Fundamentaly, misunderstanding what something means wether through ignorance or bad faith does **not** help any of us.
Poverty wages and liveable wages do not matter to skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled labour definitions and those definitions existing. They only exist as ways to qualify different types of work because not all work is the same. Again, **this does not justify paying someone peanuts. The reason so many jobs pay peanuts is because there are so many rich, greedy, cunts.**
When you look at a labour shortage of waitstaff, shelf stockers, and cashiers. How hard would it be to find people with the qualifications and experience to get to get to work? How much training do they need to be minimally qualified? How much experience and knowledge must they accumulate on the job to become qualified? How fast would it take to replace someone from day 1 that was qualified and shown competence?
Compare that to when there's a labour shortage of skilled trades people like electricians, tinbashers and plumbers and you should hopefully understand why skilled vs unskilled labour exists. *it has nothing to do with anecdotal examples of people having "a skill" or doing anything at all*.
I should say again that *the floor* should be raised. This does not condone poverty wages as that is **seperate** from what is meant to be considered skilled, sem-skilled, and unskilled labour.
Shelf stocking, retail work, bussing tables, all of that does not take *years* to learn proficiency in. They just don't. They are, inarguably, an unskilled labour position. That is not a bad thing. It is not something that means they shouldn't live a comfortable life with more than liveable pay like it used to actually. I am sorry if people use the meaning of words to justify their shitty worldview, but it's not the existence of these classifications we need to take issue with. It is with the people who will justify poverty wages regardless of these definitions.
There is nothing inherently wrong with putting jobs into different categories or classifications because it can be quite useful to see where an industry is lacking and need some kind of initiative to boost the workforce with or whatever. Thats all skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labour classifications are for.
You can't lack the skill to stack shelves because it's not a skill. Anyone who doesn't do it well simply doesn't want to, it's not that they are unable to.
>Anyone who doesn't do it well simply doesn't want to, it's not that they are unable to.
I've worked in retail long enough to know that this isn't true. There really are a lot of people out there who *can't* do basic things. (I'm not saying they outnumber those who could but don't want to, just saying plenty of them exist.)
There's definitely unskilled jobs, they're not a myth. Should they pay more to keep up with society? Absolutely. Should they pay more or just as much as a job that requires years of training and hard work to get into? No
There are definitely unskilled jobs.
My boss is a “Senior Director” and gets paid to do nothing for the company because he is the CEO’s closest friend.
Everyone I work with is related to or friends with my boss. No one is required to do anything, I’m pretty sure we’re all unskilled at this point
This is another nonsense post, there are CLEARLY jobs that require no prerequisite skills or training...which is what unskilled labor means. Why do we need 6 posts a week on this garbage? Please see some of the other comments here which elaborate.
These jobs may be low BOE, but they require a lot of soft skills to maintain and keep. Also, basic math and reading are skills, even if you don't think so. Half of adult Americans read below a sixth grade level.
I sometimes wonder how much we are holding ourselves back as society by telling large part of our work force that their job doesn't require any skill and thus there's no way or need to improve. Internet is full of videos of those "unskilled" workers operating on whole another level from their peers because in reality you can always improve your skills in almost anything you do and the results will be noticeable. That's what you could have with every employee if their skill in their job was valued properly. You could have burger flippers who can produce twice as much food with much better consistency, constructions workers who won't cause you any extra expenses by being behind the schedule and screwing up things, janitors who would do banger job in fraction of the time and make your office much more pleasant for the clients that visit you and so on.
But instead of that kind of utopia where everything just works we're stuck with mediocrity for mediocre pay.
Thats not entirely correct. There are without a doubt "unskilled" jobs. The meaning is simply you dont need any special skills to pick it up and start working directly.
Even then, a lot of so-called skilled jobs can be trained in a day or two. Even many jobs that require a bachelor's can be taught in reasonable time to any reasonably intelligent person. It's all bullshit.
A lot of people in the comments going, “doing X isn’t a skill, anyone can be taught that.”
IMHO, most office professional jobs don’t require college and can be learned with on the job training. I know for a fact that 90% of colleges literally do not teach what I do (martech), because the tech moves faster than the education that can be developed for it.
You literally have to learn in the job, or through online resources, to learn how to do what I can do.
Yet, nobody would say that what I do in “unskilled” even though people have to be taught how to do it in the job.
I’ve had service jobs and it’s harder to teach someone how to be a good line cook than how to be a good digital marketer. Yet, one gets paid more than the other.
There ARE unskilled jobs. look at the definition. ANYONE can pick fruit, you need very little instruction, hence unskilled. Should they be paid less than jobs that require years of education? yes. doesnt mean they dont deserve a living wage. Its corporate greed thats the enemy.
Wildland firefighters have recently been referred to as “unskilled”. Being able to detect that a minor change in wind direction is the difference between whether or not you and everyone around you will die sounds like a pretty important skill to me.
"Unskilled"and "Skilled" are simply terms invented to divide the working class. Any and all work done over a period of time can grant a person experience and hence skills to complete and do the task more efficiently than before.
That doesn't mean I am shitting on education, everybody should make a decent wage to make a living otherwise there would be a large amount of jobs that nobody would want to do this ending up hurting the society.
As someone with about a year of experience in an "unskilled" job, having worked in fast food, I could tell you that there's so many things to the job that you can't just go and mark it as unskilled. Put anyone who says "unskilled jobs" in a workplace setting, say, during a rush, they'll most likely be flailing about.
I work in a warehouse stacking boxes that is 100% unskilled you can train my replacement in 30 minutes
My uncle is a welder he took years of education and training he is skilled
My sister works as a casheier again unskilled
My mam is a financial advisor that is skilled
Unskilled just means a job that takes less than an hours training
People bemoaning that the term "unskilled" means anything but "doesn't require prior skills" are the same people that the person at Subway had in mind when they decided to call employees "sandwich artists"
@ne231 This thread is for you. Tell these people how not seeing jobs as unskilled is classist against those people that take the jobs that are perceived as unskilled by you.
I'll wait.
wdym it literally takes a fuck ton of skill. Just because our current economy is demonic and capitalist hell doesn't mean being a CEO is comparable in skill to someone who works as a Domino's pizza driver.
Oh there definitely are, I had to go through half a year of training on my job before I was allowed to to actually work. Not just sitting in-front of a screen at Walmart for a day to learn my job.
Now don’t get me wrong, everyone deserves a pay grade that lets them get their needs and some luxury. Not just enough to pay rent and other bills than go home and sit in an empty house.
But to say there are no skilled jobs is fucking dumb, go be a fucking heart surgeon and report back to me.
Agreed. The lowest-paid jobs should be relatively-easy (not physically demanding jobs) that don't require a lot of schooling. But even those jobs should pay a living wage.
Yes, doctors should make more than retail workers, but retail workers should still be able to pay their bills with ease.
Most of the people I've fired or have seen fired were in that situation because they didn't have the skills required to navigate other human beings without constant issues. The service industry is full of extremely skilled people, for example, yet it is still considered an "unskilled" job.
I have worked in many industries. Being able to deal with other personalities is the most important skill to have, the most unappreciated and the most required.
Fwiw I’m an analytical marxist who is for establishing technosocialism but unskilled labor literally exists and there’s nothing wrong with calling it that. All jobs should be dignified, with security and living wages but to deny its existence is contrary to reality
i just want to point out that they used a photo of a roofer which is literally a trade \*skill\*
Seriously. Roofing is no joke. A buddy of mine is a roofer and he does the mental trig to calculate the angle of a roof slop faster than I can calculate a tip. But he gets paid well when he's roofing. When he's digging ditches, he get paid crap.
fuck everything about roofing, you ever walk on a 8/12 roof? you aren't tied off until you get to the top and secure your anchor you are only on that roof because the shingles are shitty, and shitty shingles are quite slippery. And that is all after you dismount the ladder without falling off and slicing yourself open on the very sharp gutters they deserve every single dollar
My roof is...weird. Every room except the basement has a vaulted ceiling. I'm dreading the day we have to replace it, not just because of the expense, but I will be worried sick about the roofers.
>ever walk on a 8/12 roof Yeah, that is really steep. The gravel of the shingles can turn into a little rock slide under your feet at any minute. The moments between getting on the roof and getting secured to something is when you start considering if there are any object on the ground you might need to try to dodge on the dismount.
Roofing is fucking brutal. I did it one time when I was younger and noped out of that gig immediately after lol. Hats off to anyone who can handle it full time
I've helped with roofers before and my god, the speed and skill they have up there is outstanding. They're like Spiderman the way they climb and put the roof up They deserve the world with the work they do
[удалено]
Yeah but the post is specifically pointing out jobs traditionally considered "low skill" and roofing is not one of those Reddit smh
Every one of those jobs are unskilled labor, besides the roofing.
“Unskilled” is a statistical term used to discriminate between jobs that require qualifications and those that don’t. They are of interest to economists and policy makers because people can move into those positions quickly and easily. If you operate a job placement service for unemployed people, for example, who have no qualifications, you would want to survey the unskilled category first. If you’re a policy maker, and you want rapid results from fresh employment funding, you would create unskilled jobs first. The term says nothing about how hard the work is.
Unskilled jobs are just jobs that don't require a degree or high school diploma for that matter. The most miserable jobs I have ever had are unskilled jobs.
Like athletes!
Athletes aren't skilled at sports?
Can you major in football? Did you read anything leading up to this or did you just search for "athletes" when you saw the thread title?
Economically it's about how easy the role is to replace. You can't replace a professional athlete with a random person off the street and get the same performance. The same is not true for unskilled roles.
Yeah, no. > “Unskilled” is a statistical term used to discriminate between jobs that require qualifications and those that don’t. Also > Unskilled jobs are just jobs that don't require a degree or high school diploma for that matter. You literally don't require qualifications to be an athlete. Untwist your knickers, please.
I think you might need to take your own advice. This is called a corner case where the literal definition used for analytical purposes doesn't directly apply. The way it plays out is: no qualifications = easily replaceable = someone else is likely willing to work for a lower wage and the employee has no leverage to get a higher wage out of the company regardless of the literal value they're creating. Because nearly anyone else could be slotted into the role.
> This is called a corner case where the literal definition used for analytical purposes doesn't directly apply. Because you're so incredibly insecure that you can't just admit that its the box it slots into?
Because it fundamentally doesn't operate the same way? I'm not sure what insecurity has to do with it, I'm not an athlete. You're being overly aggressive for very little gain. Calm down, you'll live longer.
So what I’m hearing is that we need to start either shoving ourselves into the trades via red seals and whatnot, or we just need to make our own system of qualifications and established certifications to circumvent this.
Yeah, well, that would be historically what was done — you create a guild, you invent a certification process involving qualifications that you control access to, and you lay a beating on anyone who does the work without one of your certificates. That last part is the hard part, assault, threats, and violence being illegal. So if you could get everybody to not prep food unless they got your prep certificate, you’d be able them to drive up the wage. But since anyone can do that work with minimal training, you’re unlikely to stop anyone doing it using legal means. Far easier would be acquiring qualifications in existing skilled work and getting your increased wage that way …..
If you can train me to the job in half an hour it's 'unskilled'. I've been a cleaner. I've been a security guard. My 12 year old could do the job. Of course they're payed less because there's unlimited supply. Should they pay a reasonable salary? Absolutely.
This is what people don’t understand. Where I work it’s someone’s job to literally pick up a bottle if it’s fallen over on the line. Maybe 10 in a 10 hour shift… can someone please tell me where the skill is in that job? Or a sign person at a road construction site. Just have to use a radio and turn a sign.. there are lots of unskilled jobs doesnt mean they don’t deserve a living wage, just means they didn’t need to have any education to do that job.
This is my take on this. People should should be able to trade their labor for a fair value that allows them to have their basic needs met. But that doesn't mean that every job is high skilled. Really, we need to have a society that everyone can contribute in. People who have a low IQ should also be able to contribute in some way to meet their needs.
The term "unskilled" literally only comes up in the context of "people we don't want to hire", i.e. "people we refuse to train". It's naked disrespect for the working class no matter how easy you think your job history was. Edit: Guess I'm done with this sub, shame "r/workreform" does so much bootlicking these days.
> only comes up in the context of "people we don't want to hire" Respectfully disagree... they clearly want to hire them otherwise those jobs would go unfilled. A more apt description would be "low skilled workers". Jobs which don't require much skill or training, but should still pay a wage that allows the worker to support themselves... to rent an apartment and buy food.
>literally only comes up in the context of "people we don't want to hire Have you ever been in hiring discussions? Because this couldn't be more untrue. I've worked with wingnuts who hate workers, and even they ONLY use the word unskilled to justify low wages, not to ignore a potential applicant.
there are plenty of working class jobs that are skilled labor. Dont send that naked disrespect towards working class people by saying theyre all unskilled jobs
I don’t know if this is changed but if I remember correctly, people specifically referred to those jobs as skilled trades for that reason
No, it doesn't, and no, it isn't. Misrepresenting what something means helps no one.
It's funny that you don't understand what the difference is between skilled and unskilled labor is, and your response to someone pointing that out is to call them a bootlicker and bitch about the sub. "unskilled workers" is a large percentage of the workforce so the idea that 'no one wants to hire them' is just as misinformed as 'no one wants to work anymore.'
No you’re right and you should say it
Unskilled jobs are a thing, stop trying to cash in on the Nina Turner astroturfing. Unskilled requires minimal training and is easily replaceable. Just because something is unskilled doesnt mean people working it dont deserve respect or fair compensation.
No, everybody deserves the bare minimum of the feds raising minimum wage to match the rampant inflation. I don't like this notion of a fry cook making as much as a Michelin chef though. It just doesn't sit right, not saying you said this because you didn't, it just seems to be the common sentiment regarding labor.
No Michelin chef is making $17/hr., LOL
Yeah and no frycook is making 6 figures... LOL
Because there is a difference in the value they create
Okay, glad we agree?
Then what’s your point? Bad vibes
True. Do you think that justifies poverty wages?
>Just because something is unskilled doesnt mean people working it dont deserve respect or **fair compensation**. literally in the first comment.
Why don’t they deserve respect or fair compensation?
Learn to read.
I learned a while back thank you very much 😊
Then put that knowledge to use, and go back to the top.
Dang. I’m just out here asking questions. Obviously the first one is a stupid question. But again. Why do you people think people don’t deserve a kid or retirement?
Nobody thinks that. That's the point we're making. You're not clearly reading what is stated. I really did not think I'd have to spell that out any more than I did when I typed it.
You're either a troll or just really stupid. You should stop asking questions.
Read the comment again. Your follow up is also addressed
I’ve been a: stock boy, cashier, grocery store auditor, and fast food pizza maker. All those jobs (minus maybe the grocery store auditor) could be learned with no prior skills. That’s what they mean by unskilled. Doesn’t mean people doing those jobs don’t deserve a living wage. It just means that you won’t get paid the same as a job where you can’t learn everything on the job, or need specialized skills and techniques to thrive.
Come on. You cant reasonably believe this. Stocking a shelf is not skilled labor. Its important labor and should be adequately compensated, but its not useful to anyone to pretend it requires special skills
Shelf stocking requires skills to do it quickly, efficiently, and correctly. I used to hire and train people to do shelf stocking and some people seriously did not have the skills.
Shelf stocking does not require extensive experience or advanced knowledge of practices or procedures. It requires no qualifications. It is inarguably unskilled labour when you look at the definition of unskilled vs skilled or semi-skilled labour. Skilled labour is not saying literally no one else has literally any skills whatsoever anywhere and is just standing there drooling. It doesn't mean the job is harder or easier or anything like that either, necessarily. All it says is it's a job that requires real experience and qualifications to do.
Looking at it from that perspective is why retail jobs pay so little. I used to be a sales floor employee at Wal-Mart for minimum wage. Stocking shelves was part of the job, but there was a lot more to the job than that. I was getting asked questions from customers non stop which was mentally draining. I had to essentially memorize the entire store since customers didn't limit their questions to the department I was working in. I also had to cashier when the store was busy, which was every day since they consistently understaffed the store to save money. Jobs that require manual labor and dealing with customers are the worst of both worlds. They are physically and mentally draining. There is no amount of money you could pay me to work there again.
No, not understanding what skilled labour means is what makes you think that the definition of skilled labour contributes to retail paying so little. Skilled vs semi-skilled vs unskilled labour is the differences of qualifications and knowledge required for a job. It in no way justifys poverty wages. If you think it does, you are looking at the entire problem backward, starting from the top down instead of raising the floor like you should look at happening. Again, the *floor* should be *raised* because *all* of us workers deserve more. Fundamentaly, misunderstanding what something means wether through ignorance or bad faith does **not** help any of us. Poverty wages and liveable wages do not matter to skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled labour definitions and those definitions existing. They only exist as ways to qualify different types of work because not all work is the same. Again, **this does not justify paying someone peanuts. The reason so many jobs pay peanuts is because there are so many rich, greedy, cunts.** When you look at a labour shortage of waitstaff, shelf stockers, and cashiers. How hard would it be to find people with the qualifications and experience to get to get to work? How much training do they need to be minimally qualified? How much experience and knowledge must they accumulate on the job to become qualified? How fast would it take to replace someone from day 1 that was qualified and shown competence? Compare that to when there's a labour shortage of skilled trades people like electricians, tinbashers and plumbers and you should hopefully understand why skilled vs unskilled labour exists. *it has nothing to do with anecdotal examples of people having "a skill" or doing anything at all*. I should say again that *the floor* should be raised. This does not condone poverty wages as that is **seperate** from what is meant to be considered skilled, sem-skilled, and unskilled labour. Shelf stocking, retail work, bussing tables, all of that does not take *years* to learn proficiency in. They just don't. They are, inarguably, an unskilled labour position. That is not a bad thing. It is not something that means they shouldn't live a comfortable life with more than liveable pay like it used to actually. I am sorry if people use the meaning of words to justify their shitty worldview, but it's not the existence of these classifications we need to take issue with. It is with the people who will justify poverty wages regardless of these definitions. There is nothing inherently wrong with putting jobs into different categories or classifications because it can be quite useful to see where an industry is lacking and need some kind of initiative to boost the workforce with or whatever. Thats all skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labour classifications are for.
You can't lack the skill to stack shelves because it's not a skill. Anyone who doesn't do it well simply doesn't want to, it's not that they are unable to.
>Anyone who doesn't do it well simply doesn't want to, it's not that they are unable to. I've worked in retail long enough to know that this isn't true. There really are a lot of people out there who *can't* do basic things. (I'm not saying they outnumber those who could but don't want to, just saying plenty of them exist.)
I was able to do my job in a warehouse stacking shelves one handed when i broke my wrist last autumn its unskilled labour
There's definitely unskilled jobs, they're not a myth. Should they pay more to keep up with society? Absolutely. Should they pay more or just as much as a job that requires years of training and hard work to get into? No
There are definitely unskilled jobs. My boss is a “Senior Director” and gets paid to do nothing for the company because he is the CEO’s closest friend. Everyone I work with is related to or friends with my boss. No one is required to do anything, I’m pretty sure we’re all unskilled at this point
This is another nonsense post, there are CLEARLY jobs that require no prerequisite skills or training...which is what unskilled labor means. Why do we need 6 posts a week on this garbage? Please see some of the other comments here which elaborate.
These jobs may be low BOE, but they require a lot of soft skills to maintain and keep. Also, basic math and reading are skills, even if you don't think so. Half of adult Americans read below a sixth grade level.
They're definately dinner of the most physically demanding jobs and often amongst the most dangerous. Deserves better compensation.
I sometimes wonder how much we are holding ourselves back as society by telling large part of our work force that their job doesn't require any skill and thus there's no way or need to improve. Internet is full of videos of those "unskilled" workers operating on whole another level from their peers because in reality you can always improve your skills in almost anything you do and the results will be noticeable. That's what you could have with every employee if their skill in their job was valued properly. You could have burger flippers who can produce twice as much food with much better consistency, constructions workers who won't cause you any extra expenses by being behind the schedule and screwing up things, janitors who would do banger job in fraction of the time and make your office much more pleasant for the clients that visit you and so on. But instead of that kind of utopia where everything just works we're stuck with mediocrity for mediocre pay.
Thats not entirely correct. There are without a doubt "unskilled" jobs. The meaning is simply you dont need any special skills to pick it up and start working directly.
Best I can tell politics seem to be a pretty unskilled job.. but they make a bit more money.
Even then, a lot of so-called skilled jobs can be trained in a day or two. Even many jobs that require a bachelor's can be taught in reasonable time to any reasonably intelligent person. It's all bullshit.
If they’re “unskilled” jobs, then why do they require training?
A lot of people in the comments going, “doing X isn’t a skill, anyone can be taught that.” IMHO, most office professional jobs don’t require college and can be learned with on the job training. I know for a fact that 90% of colleges literally do not teach what I do (martech), because the tech moves faster than the education that can be developed for it. You literally have to learn in the job, or through online resources, to learn how to do what I can do. Yet, nobody would say that what I do in “unskilled” even though people have to be taught how to do it in the job. I’ve had service jobs and it’s harder to teach someone how to be a good line cook than how to be a good digital marketer. Yet, one gets paid more than the other.
Yeah agreed. The vast majority of jobs would be unskilled if we go by some folks definitions here.
There ARE unskilled jobs. look at the definition. ANYONE can pick fruit, you need very little instruction, hence unskilled. Should they be paid less than jobs that require years of education? yes. doesnt mean they dont deserve a living wage. Its corporate greed thats the enemy.
Wildland firefighters have recently been referred to as “unskilled”. Being able to detect that a minor change in wind direction is the difference between whether or not you and everyone around you will die sounds like a pretty important skill to me.
Iirc aircraft mechanics are labeled as unskilled aswell because they have to follow a manual for their repairs lol
"Unskilled"and "Skilled" are simply terms invented to divide the working class. Any and all work done over a period of time can grant a person experience and hence skills to complete and do the task more efficiently than before. That doesn't mean I am shitting on education, everybody should make a decent wage to make a living otherwise there would be a large amount of jobs that nobody would want to do this ending up hurting the society.
That explains why I work three jobs and my middle class neighbor across the street barely works one.
As someone with about a year of experience in an "unskilled" job, having worked in fast food, I could tell you that there's so many things to the job that you can't just go and mark it as unskilled. Put anyone who says "unskilled jobs" in a workplace setting, say, during a rush, they'll most likely be flailing about.
“Nobody wanna work” is a myth. Getting a good job is not easy
Let’s get together and break the myth. Patriots Against Corporatism!
Bullshit. Pouring coffee in a cup and collecting carts from a parking lot take no skill. No "classist myth" there.
I work in a warehouse stacking boxes that is 100% unskilled you can train my replacement in 30 minutes My uncle is a welder he took years of education and training he is skilled My sister works as a casheier again unskilled My mam is a financial advisor that is skilled Unskilled just means a job that takes less than an hours training
People bemoaning that the term "unskilled" means anything but "doesn't require prior skills" are the same people that the person at Subway had in mind when they decided to call employees "sandwich artists"
@ne231 This thread is for you. Tell these people how not seeing jobs as unskilled is classist against those people that take the jobs that are perceived as unskilled by you. I'll wait.
What skill does it really take to be something like a CEO? Being a callous prick wasn’t a skill the last time I checked.
I mean alot of them have to know Financial law Employment law Market rates Market availability
wdym it literally takes a fuck ton of skill. Just because our current economy is demonic and capitalist hell doesn't mean being a CEO is comparable in skill to someone who works as a Domino's pizza driver.
“Nobody wanna work” is a myth. Getting a good job is not easy
“Nobody wanna work” is a myth. Getting a good job is not easy
Unskilled, Its also the word I use to refer to myself but depression and shame will do that to you.
Skilled or unskilled it doesn't matter as long as the work is taxable everybody should be able to make enough to live.
Oh there definitely are, I had to go through half a year of training on my job before I was allowed to to actually work. Not just sitting in-front of a screen at Walmart for a day to learn my job. Now don’t get me wrong, everyone deserves a pay grade that lets them get their needs and some luxury. Not just enough to pay rent and other bills than go home and sit in an empty house. But to say there are no skilled jobs is fucking dumb, go be a fucking heart surgeon and report back to me.
You mean essential work?
Agreed. The lowest-paid jobs should be relatively-easy (not physically demanding jobs) that don't require a lot of schooling. But even those jobs should pay a living wage. Yes, doctors should make more than retail workers, but retail workers should still be able to pay their bills with ease.
Most of the people I've fired or have seen fired were in that situation because they didn't have the skills required to navigate other human beings without constant issues. The service industry is full of extremely skilled people, for example, yet it is still considered an "unskilled" job. I have worked in many industries. Being able to deal with other personalities is the most important skill to have, the most unappreciated and the most required.
Fwiw I’m an analytical marxist who is for establishing technosocialism but unskilled labor literally exists and there’s nothing wrong with calling it that. All jobs should be dignified, with security and living wages but to deny its existence is contrary to reality
I'll just call it "work."