it’s also far less unskilled than people assign credit for. all work is knowledge work
I feel like, especially here in the US, what unskilled means has changed to “any job that doesn’t require a college degree”.
We seem to have almost completely forgotten about apprenticeships and similar career paths.
I vote we call them ‘core contributors’ from now on.
I rememebe when they were called them heroes during covid, but received no increase in pay and were treated like shit again the moment the vaccine existed.
ah yes, you helped save society from collapse. Here’s a gold star and a rent increase. Thank you!
Yeah, it’s also interesting that we almost never say “skilled work”. It’s just work vs. ‘Unskilled’. Might as well just stop with the division (which is only useful to billionaires and people in finance). Divide and conquer, I guess…
It’s only really a measure of how easy you are to replace.
Skilled or unskilled. If you do a full day’s work, you should be able to support yourself and family.
We should also take care of those that are unable to do so.
No labor is unskilled it’s classist bullshit to make us think we’re better than each other. Farm work especially so since there are weird local tricks for local planting styles and crops.
Don’t worry. Republicans have a plan. Forcing births of unwanted children with no resources to house, feed, or educate them while relaxing child labor laws should fix that right up.
And shutting down the department of education
Right. You can learn everything you need to know on the farm or in the factory.
Skilled labor refers to jobs that require certification and training that imply specific distinct skill sets. For example if I tell you Im a mason, a plumber, or a radiologist you know exactly what my skills are.
Unskilled labor jobs are not jobs that lack skills rather they are the roles whose titles do not imply specific skills, tasks or educations. Im a wine importer what does. that tell you about what I know or can do? Can you tell my skill at say driving a forklift from that title?
Unskilled labor doesn’t mean you have no skills
Which is exactly the point of the post: there is no such thing as unskilled labour. This label must die
that’s such a pedantic point
Well, I do respond in kind to dumb attempts at arguing
No, it shouldn’t because this is an incredibly useful concept in economics which you would understand if you had taken economics courses.
Edit: to those without this background it is very useful to determine the stability of an economy if all the people with jobs that take years of training, which are skilled labor, suddenly start to flee as that suggests that the economy is collapsing.
Ive taken many economic courses, none of which talk about “skilled” or “unskilled labour”. They do, however, brainwash the fuck out of you into believing the post-scarcity capilist need for ever increasing profits not only makes sense, but is a necessary facet of society.
Yeah I don’t believe you have taken or at the least understood any courses in economics if that’s your takeaway.
Not learning about unskilled and skilled labor in economics is akin to claiming you didn’t learn what the Pythagorean theorem in geometry. It is extremely unlikely to be true that you weren’t taught this as it is very basic stuff.
It’s derogatory and innacurate description, workers aren’t a commodity. Having a college degree doesn’t mean you’re a specialist. You don’t have to have a certification or degree to be skilled. Economist isn’t a skilled job because you can’t predict the future, it’s a self fullfilling prophecy when you apply your own perceptions into descision making. Not everything is a predictable pattern.
No, it is not. It is a term in economics for specific jobs and it shouldn’t be responded to emotionally. It’s science.
Maybe consider that as you have no education in economics, as is evident by your claims that economists intend to predict the future rather than explained what has already happened, that your reaction is not coming from a place of understanding.
This isn’t intended to debase people and my own career is “unskilled” despite requiring years of “education” to do well (I’m in wine/liquor).
It’s not a science, it’s a cult.
Lol. Did I say “label” or “concept”? You would know the difference if you had taken linguistics/logic courses, but alas
It’s the same thing in both cases which you would know if you had a background in either of the subjects you listed.
Fun fact: it is not
Just because it’s a term you learned in school doesn’t mean it’s not used to hold people back. The term is used to imply that people who aren’t skilled don’t deserve a living wage and lots of voters fall for it and push the narrative that if you flip burgers you don’t deserve to pay rent on time and go to the movies on the same month.
You are having a purely emotional response to scientific jargon. What are you trying to do here? Nothing you state is true within the context of the field.
It’s an emotional response to point out how a word has been used to keep people from being paid what they’re worth? I think it’s an emotional response to cling so hard to a word that could very easily be changed and hurt no one.
It’s an emotional response to point out how a word has been used to keep people from being paid what they’re worth?
No, why do you think that is the case? Most wages are paid out based on what the market fr that job pays not based on whether it is skilled or unskilled. My brother makes more in sales (unskilled) than my buddy who is a neurosurgeon.
I think it’s an emotional response to cling so hard to a word that could very easily be changed and hurt no one.
It’s scientific jargon. If you are having an emotional response to it that’s not the fault if the field.
No, why do you think that is the case? Most wages are paid out based on what the market fr that job pays not based on whether it is skilled or unskilled. My brother makes more in sales (unskilled) than my buddy who is a neurosurgeon.
Because I’ve heard people use it as an excuse for why minimum wage shouldn’t cover bills and they vote accordingly. Language matters.
It’s scientific jargon. If you are having an emotional response to it that’s not the fault if the field.
Scientific jargon can and has changed to better represent what they’re talking about no reason this can’t either unless that makes some people too… emotional.
You are having a purely emotional response to scientific jargon.
We’re humans who have emotional responses to things, and we should be cognizant of that when choosing our words. We should also be aware of how bad actors may use our words to manipulate public opinion via those emotions.
We don’t use things like mongoloid or crippled anymore even though they were once considered perfectly acceptable medical terms. Unskilled is inherently derogatory, and the thesaurus is offering alternatives such as fundamental, foundational, or generalized. I like generalized labor the best so far, because it contrasts perfectly with specialized.
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In scenarios such as this, its better to spread the word about the original intention of the phrase, rather than blaming it.
Good news don’t travel so fast. Changing the term to something harder to make derogatory would be a much better solution.
Mate, this is very meta with the OP in a bad way. Dismissing someone this way really goes against the values here. Not everyone had the chance to take higher education courses. And not having that chance does not invalidate immediately their views.
It does when we are speaking about terminology taken directly from a specific science.
You do not get to define how an academic field uses terms because of an emotional response derived from your inexperience with a subject.
Finally MIT literally offers all of this online for free and have for 10-15 years. If you want to learn you can.
There definitely are jobs that are truly unskilled.
- Hauling bags of cement on a construction site
- Mucking out animal pens on a farm
- Digging ditches with a shovel
- Carrying and stacking firewood
These are jobs any able-bodied person can do without any training. Then you have very low skilled jobs such as being part of a moving crew for moving companies. For that one you need to be careful moving heavy and/or fragile objects without breaking them or damaging surroundings. But that’s really more about paying attention to what you’re doing than a skill you would receive training to do.
Skilled labor is economics jargon. Skilled labor jobs are ones that if you are told someone does you’ll know more or less what they can do and what their job normally requires. All jobs require skills but skilled labor requires certifications of training and frequently takes years to earn.
Right but this argument is due to a conflict between economics jargon and everyday language. The people opposed to the term “unskilled labour” are unhappy about the negative connotations of the word “unskilled.”
To phrase this differently these people are taking a term from economics used in an economic context and responding to it out of ignorance.
I disagree. This is a term which exists simultaneously in economics and in everyday speech. The everyday meaning has negative connotations whereas the economics term does not. People are responding to this conflict by trying to get economists to change their term in order to avoid the negative connotations.
I, personally, don’t agree with this approach to language in any case. Linguistic prescriptivism of this sort is authoritarian and highly susceptible to backlash. It’s vulnerable to the mistaken belief that if someone accedes to an authority’s demands, they now agree with the authority.
Except when you see it in “everyday speech” it is still being used in an economic context. Try using skilled or unskilled labor in a sentence where you aren’t discussing economics.
Everyday speech in an economic context but not by economists. That’s the difference. Two surgeons discussing an appendectomy over lunch is different from two random people in a bar discussing an appendectomy.
They’re both using a term from a technical context but their understanding of the technical meaning of the term is different and the connotations are different.
Unfortunately while this is “a” definition of skilled and unskilled labor, this is not how the media uses the term.
When the media refers to unskilled labor, they are absolutely not referring to wine importers. Or middle managers, or authors, or interior decorators, or any of the countless jobs that do not require any special training other than a non-specific college degree.
When they are referring to unskilled labor, they are referring to work that pays criminally low wages. That’s it.
Skilled workers are persons who are capable of performing skilled labor and whose job requires at least 2 years training or experience, not of a temporary or seasonal nature.
According to the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (archive) a commercial truck driver - who requires special certification in the form of a Commercial Driver’s License - is an unskilled laborer.
Can you tell my skill at say driving a forklift from that title?
Sorry, but forklift certification takes less than two years. A forklift driver is not a skilled laborer according to the USCIS or the media.
I acknowledge that the citizenship service isn’t the department of labor, but the department of labor doesn’t appear to use the terms “unskilled” and “skilled” at all. They use a more nuanced categorization of five “zones” of skill/certification instead. Probably due to the issues discussed in this post.
The media uses it the same way economists do.
A CDL bearing truck driver is unskilled because despite the certification that job does not immediately communicate specific skill sets as not all CDL drivers can operate all vehicles. That’s why they aren’t skilled.
Sorry, but forklift certification takes less than two years. A forklift driver is not a skilled laborer according to the USCIS or the media.
My point was my job title does not imply any specific skills not that forklift operators are skilled labor (which I never claimed). You cannot tell whether or not I know how to operate a forklift based on my title. Now if I said I was a mason instead of a wine importer you would know exactly what I am capable of doing because a mason is a job that has specific skills.
Skilled and unskilled can be further broken down but as geberal concepts that should be similar/the same for all aspects of government
Skilled labor refers to jobs that require certification and training that imply specific distinct skill sets. For example if I tell you Im a mason, a plumber, or a radiologist you know exactly what my skills are.
My point was my job title does not imply any specific skills not that forklift operators are skilled labor (which I never claimed).
Oh, okay, sorry, I misunderstood. I think I follow now, and I’m sorry to say that your position is simply incorrect. Your stance on the CDL doesn’t make any sense. It’s not skilled because “commercial truck driver” doesn’t describe the types of vehicles you can drive?
According to the United States Government, a radiologist is not a skilled laborer OR an unskilled laborer, they are a Professional. A member of the Professions.
Nothing supports your definition that I can find. At all. Skilled labor refers to the skills you need to do the labor. Skilled labor does not refer to job titles that self-describe their skills. “Mason” is a skilled laborer because it describes what you do?
Masonry requires no special certifications at all. In fact, according to the USCIS, a mason isn’t a skilled laborer.(edit - there are masonry licenses, apologies for the mistake)By your logic, “Warehouse Porter” with a forklift certification is not skilled labor, but “Forklift operator” would be a skilled laborer? They need special training, and the title describes exactly what they do, right?
According to the United States Government, a radiologist is not a skilled laborer OR an unskilled laborer, they are a Professional. A member of the Professions.
That’s wrong they are skilled labor as they meet all the same qualifications- long term of training, a title that specifically describes what they do, and professional certifications proving this.
Nothing supports your definition that I can find. At all.
That’s because you keep looking in the wrong places like USCIS as opposed to say the department of Labor. You could also just google “skilled vs unskilled labor”.
Skilled labor refers to the skills you need to do the labor
No it does not. That is the mistake that people with no background in economics make all the time. This thread is filled with people continually making this error.
Skilled labor does not refer to job titles that self-describe their skills. “Mason” is a skilled laborer because it describes what you do?
Yes you know a mason can build your retaining wall and you also know they are not experts in plumbing.
Contrasting the above with a CDL driver A CDL driver who can drive a tractor trailerikely can drive most trucks but not everyone with a CDL is capable of doing so so the job “commercial truck driver” isn’t skilled.
Masonry requires no special certifications at all.
Yes. they do.
In fact, according to the USCIS, a mason isn’t a skilled laborer.
US customs and immigration services is not the people who determine this.
By your logic, “Warehouse Porter” with a forklift certification is not skilled labor, but “Forklift operator” would be a skilled laborer?
Neither is
They need special training, and the title describes exactly what they do, right?
Nope because there are many different kinds of forklifts and not everyone can operate all versions. For example Raymond articulated swing arm lift that’s in my warehouse most people can’t drive because the forks are on the side and it does an entirely different job than what most people think of when they think if a forklift.
Sorry. You’re really hung up on an outdated academic definition that just isn’t accurate or used the way you think it is. It’s sorta like complaining that people mean figuratively when they say literally.
That’s because you keep looking in the wrong places like USCIS as opposed to say the department of Labor. You could also just google “skilled vs unskilled labor”.
Please see my earlier comment. I can’t find DOL definition for skilled vs unskilled at all, let alone one that matches yours.
And the third option was googling “skilled vs unskilled labor”.
I did, thanks. I tried to look for something better or more authoritative than this. It describes skilled labor as laborers that are skilled. I don’t see anything about a self-descriptive title.
Skilled labor refers to highly trained, educated, or experienced segments of the workforce that can complete more complex mental or physical tasks on the job.
Unskilled labor is a workforce segment associated with a limited skill set or minimal economic value for the work performed. Unskilled labor is generally characterized by lower educational attainment, such as a high school diploma or lack thereof, typically resulting in smaller wages.
It clearly states that unskilled labor = low economic value and low wages. It then goes on to further stratify labor into “low-”, "mid-, and “semi-” skilled jobs with vague definitions. Delivery driver is semi skilled? For ubereats and UPS? At what level is a truck driver unskilled, skilled, or semiskilled?
Customer Service Representative is semi-skilled labor? Most of the few remaining jobs have been outsourced to literally anyone who can speak the language.
For a brief moment in 2020, they temporarily relabeled them as “essential workers”.
It just really meant they didn’t matter, and they were the fodder for the virus.
How quickly we threw those COVID hero’s to the trash
in general we threw them in the trash as a parcel with calling them heroes. we gave them recognition of their value in lieu of due compensation
I feel like it should be called “primary” labor or something to that effect. “Skilled” labor that can’t function without “unskilled” labor to support it can be called “secondary” labor.
Everyone here should take an into economics course. Skilled labor are jobs that require certification and whose titles imply specific skills eg a mason or an ophthalmologist. No one believes that unskilled jobs don’t require skills rather those jobs don’t imply specific skills or duties.
Economists should take an English class then. Why use a word to describe a thing that doesn’t mean what the word means?
It means exactly this in the context of economics. What the people complaining are doing is taking issue that the jargon doesn’t mean what they think it should mean.
We are complaining about the fact that the field of economics is a tool only of the rich. They exist to justify wealth and greed. You wrap it in jargon and chortle about it when you are allowed in the parlors of your betters. I’ve been there, I’ve seen it.
Words matter and your choice of words sucks.
We are complaining about the fact that the field of economics is a tool only of the rich.
That’s simply not true and suggests a lack of experience with the subject.
They exist to justify wealth and greed.
Again further substantiating this idea that you have zero experience.
Words matter and your choice of words sucks.
Right back at you as you are whining about concepts in a subject that you know you know nothing about because you never studied it.
When you start really thinking about it, often unskilled jobs are nearly all the necessary jobs for humanity to survive. No one is going to suffer if your PhD army can no longer update twitter, I’m afraid to name the percentage, but most skilled jobs are useless in the sense that they’re not really making anything of value.
I think SEO jobs are good example of this.
I disagree. Without Frtiz Haber inventing nitrogen fertilizer there wouldn’t even be people to do unskilled labor.
This class battle has to stop. All economic fields are productive given that the market is valuing it. What’s not productive is corruption and hoarding and middle manager fiddling. We have science to determine all that so we don’t even need to gut feel this out.
Someone researching “transgender mice” can low key add more value than thousands or millions of “unskilled laborers”. We need to diversify and value all avenues of our collective production and growth because thats just a smart thing to do. Except for billionaires and hoarders which clearly are a net negative.
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Me! I worked most of my life with 3D and Photoshop. Some stuff i did might have increased some sales, some might have been fun, but all were useless and mostly advertisement. I always wondered, if everyone working in ads died, what effect would it have on humanity? Rich people would be worse, but humanity as a whole would be better.
That’s just my field. I can think of quite a few areas that are just harmful and exists mostly to make rich richer.
The oldest jobs, which are the most important, are in some sense paid what they were when the job was created, so mothers are paid nothing, while farm workers, cooks, homemakers are paid next to nothing.
Unskilled labour refers to those in the precarious and more easily replaced position of workers. It is used by labour advocates to identify those with a greater need for union representation.
It isn’t an insult. And the never-ending euphemism treadmill only serves to divide generations and make a handful of people feel important.
This knee-jerk reaction to the term “unskilled labour” reminds me of the one that replaced the term “ebonics” with “AAVE”, implying that the black men that came up with the term were offensive.
As I recall, it was renamed due to the conservative controversy created around Ebonics in education, specifically for testing materials, and AAVE was chosen to specifically link to the impact slavery had in the USA in the creation of it, addressing both the need to “market” the idea a different way to avoid the backlash caused by conservatives and provide a more accurate and impactful definition.
I believe the only ones who ever claimed it was derogatory were the ones fighting against its accepted use in formal testing.
But that’s just what I remember.
Anyone who has worked “unskilled” positions can tell you that every job has a learning curve and experience counts for a lot.
This is particularly true in jobs that require a degree of physical endurance and manual dexterity. Picking a vegetable is easy. Picking a thousand vegetables an hour (without bruising the produce or ruining the plant) for eight hours a day is quite difficult. And skilled workers are far more lucrative to the farm owner than clumsy neophytes.
What often defines a service worker as “unskilled” isn’t the work, but the degree to which automated capital and real estate ownership are integrated into the workflow. The more leverage the employer can exert over the hiring market, the more easily they classify labor as “unskilled”’ and downgrade the pay.
Billionaires don’t actually work. The higher up the work chain the more you get paid, and the less you do.
That’s the dream they force onto us, go up in the ladder to work less, but then you have to crush the ones below you on your way up otherwise it does not work
I feel like that’s actually pretty logical. “Skilled labor” involves skills that not everyone must have. The things that (nearly) everyone needs to be at least okay at are the things that come up in people’s lives most frequently (things like basic cleaning, socializing, and administrative/organization tasks). Without people to do the things that come up most often, society is going to fall apart.
I’m split on the name though. I understand what it means and don’t take offense (I currently work at a bakery, but I’ve also been a waitress and worked in a call center, all unskilled jobs- I’ve also worked in litigation management for an insurance company and I currently teach German classes too, which are skilled jobs, fwiw), but I get how it rubs some people the wrong way.
SPRICH
