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“Unskilled” is only unskilled because no proper training is provided. But you immediately notice if a cashier or cleaner is skilled or not. A cashier will know all the codes, all weird payment methods etc. And a cleaner needs to know the right tools for work, what chemicals to use and so on.
But if you block training and professional development in those jobs than yeah… they’re unskilled and you have asshole justification for paying poverty wages.
Janitor here, you can definitely tell between skilled and unskilled in my field
No job is unskilled. Not all jobs are skilled.
I work in a “skilled” position where it is completely reasonable to expect to be able to hire someone and have to spend very little time training them. There will be a bit of onboarding as with any job, but the nuts and bolts of how to do their job.
I’m not saying “unskilled” jobs don’t deserve a living wage, far from it. I’m just saying there’s a reason there’s a difference between the two, and one commands a premium.
“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.
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.
This is why they’re legalizing child labor.
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”.
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
Take an RF designer and have them man the till at McDonald’s with the day or two of training that most of these places do. See how they fare. I’m an EMT. Peoples lives literally depend on my skills. I was a roofer and a taco bell manager before that. I struggled more and was far more stressed at taco bell and I’d rather die than go back to working fast food.
People aren’t weaponizing the term. They’re already weaponized against the working class. The meme is calling that out. Just because that term has a specific definition doesn’t mean that’s how it’s used in the broader public. Years of propaganda went into cultivating a certain image and association with that term. You hopping in and saying “that’s not what that means!!!1!!” isn’t going to change that.
The only people that give a shit about your definition are economists and even they aren’t immune to the propaganda that’s proliferated since before they were kids to foster a negative stereotype around that term. Instead of being a contrarian butthole, why don’t you take the time to understand class struggle? You’re not helping anyone or anything with this inane bullshit
Not wanting to do something because you have better options does not mean that almost anyone can do it.
Unskilled labor is hard labor. Nothing about it is emotionally easy or less taxing on your body. But you can be taught to do it in a couple hours, hence, requires no hard skills.
There are soft skills that make people better at working a register than others - but the difference is really at the margins.
Take an RF designer and have them man the till at McDonald’s with the day or two of training that most of these places do. See how they fare. I’m an EMT. Peoples lives literally depend on my skills.
I’d guess the answer would be “be slow at checking people out and be super stressed, but be a net productivity boost to the team”.
Meanwhile, if you made him an EMT with no prior training he’d either just be shadowing an actual EMT and at best be a go-fer, or he’d kill someone. He’d likely be a net negative for a while.
“Anything is possible if you put your mind to it.”
— Dr. Jack Ripper
Is there such a thing as “skilled labor” as an inverse, or is that also a capitalist myth?
all labor is skilled labor. Some skills are more prevalent than others.
“From each according to his ability”
To deny the existence of unskilled labor is pure delusion and it alienates people who haven’t drank the koolaid. Instead argue that unskilled labor must still be compensated with at least enough money to be financially secure, same as all full time employment, regardless of what it is.
If you work full time, you shouldn’t need to worry about money. That’s it. Don’t say more.
all labor requires skill, which is why I reject the term “unskilled”. In a world in which the value of a person is determined by the value of their labor, calling a job “unskilled” carries the implication that people that are only capable of that labor are worth less. However, that’s secondary to the point this post is trying to make and you clearly recognized: everyone deserves a living wage.
I mean… I get what you’re trying to say, but I think your passion is misplaced. It’s a nice thought, of course everyone wants to feel valued for their labor.
Certain labor is worth more than others. And some labor does not require any skills. These are facts. Picking something up and moving it over there does not require any skills unless you want to get silly and say that basic human coordination is a skill. There are jobs out there for simple manual labor like this.
Everyone that works full time deserves a living wage. Funnel your passion into that point, not the one that is objectively incorrect and will sway people away from your main and very valid point.
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some labor is worth more than others
Duh
some labor does not require any skills
Wrong.
picking something up and moving it doesn’t
Yes it does. Proper lifting technique, the muscles to lift whatever it is, coordination and balance to not drop that shit, likely math skills would be involved in such a job, likely written language skills as well.
Just because you can’t think of the skills it requires immediately doesn’t meant there isnt skill being used
All labor is skilled in some way, thus all labor should be paid fairly.
That’s the entire point of the post.
Dude. Yes. I was trying to think of a way to say it, but you nailed it.
No matter what you do, as long as you’re contributing something (if you’re able), you should be able to make a living and not worry about food and shelter and healthcare and the ability to learn new information.
If you go out of your way to learn a difficult skill that requires years of work and training(engineering, medicine, agriculture, etc) then what you do is absolutely skilled labor.
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.
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.”
Which alternative term do you propose?
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.
people definitely use it in a derogatory way though
Yeah I don’t care if the jobs are literally no skill, that shouldn’t matter when it comes to paying a living wage.
The only thing that matters is how many hours it takes up in a persons day.
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 been doing it for 30 years.
Either part A is in box B or it isn’t. The difference between the best person and the worst 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.
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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.
And you don’t think the ruling class weaponizes the terminology to prevent wage increases?
You’ve literally just described every job that exists everywhere. It’s a bullshit term to other and denigrate certain groups.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
I 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. Maybe it’s not the ultimate solution to the problem since some doctors have difficulty paying off their loans. Unless you are in a highly paid specialty, you could be repaying your loans for many years.
Unskilled just means pretty much anyone can do it. McDonald’s, Walmart cashier, warehouse worker, etc.
You don’t need any sort of certification or training. Yes, you need to be “skilled” in that you may need to be physically fit or friendly in social settings, there are definitely plenty of people who are not suited to warehouse work or being a cashier, but if you are suited you can generally start right away with minimal training.
It’s still disingenuous to call it unskilled, though. Even those jobs require rudimentary skills that not everyone has. If we diminish the value of these skills, we’re just devaluing people even further.
What do you want to call it? Just curious, we love to criticize but not offer suggestions
I got into an argument with someone about this. I ended up proposing generalized versus specialized.
Unspecialized is a bit less dismissive of a term
Generalized would be a good contrast to specialized that generally lacks biases.
Why try to draw an arbitrary division like that in the first place? There are a lot of “skilled labor” positions that don’t actually require any certification or training. And there are a lot of “unskilled labor” positions that do require training. It kind of just seems like a way to dismiss certain types of labor as “lower” than others, at least that’s how the term is used in a majority of contexts.
Having to cater to your customers’ every need and socializing, keeping eye contact or regulating emotions are necessary skills for a cashier job, yet a mentally disabled person may not have those skills due to their disability. Do you guys just casually forget autism or personality disorders exist?
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.
They assigned us positions with wages. Discussing wages with each other was highly discouraged. Turns out, our wages dictated our inherent worth as people. So we decided that that was a fine way to live. And we woke up during the wee hours of the morning to move boxes and pens and registers and turn cranks. Some of us are able to feed our children and everything is fine.
This is such a dumb take.
Even USSR had a difference between skilled and unskilled workers
Ah yes, the shining beacon of workers rights that was the USSR…ffs
This post is about unskilled job be a capitalist mith right?
If any labor were truly unskilled; you could come in day one and perform as well as those who’d been at it for 10 years. I can’t think of one thing where that is the case. Does anyone still test if food has been poisoned by eating it first? Little skill, but man if so that person definitely deserves a good wage.
Except there are plenty of jobs where ten years of experience doesn’t equate to ten years better at the job.
There’s an upper limit to how efficient you can become at say - cleaning offices or picking up litter, or picking apples.
The cost of a new hire versus someone with ten years worth of experience just isn’t worth it.
Ever seen a Walmart greeter?
That is such a dumb concept, the job shouldn’t exist in the first place.
They’re nice people.
None of the icons in this meme are classed as “unskilled labour”.
A farmer? a bricklayer? are you fucking joking?
Do you have any idea how much a bricky gets paid. Probably more than you.
Another classic case of arrogant internet socialists with zero real world experience letting the mask slip.
I didn’t make this. If you’re incapable of looking past a minor inaccuracy to reach the point of “all labor requires skill and everyone deserves a living wage” then I don’t know what to tell you. You’re getting offended about farmers being pictured. I grew up working on my dad’s farm. I’ve manned cash registers. I’ve worked in kitchens. Guess what? I’m not offended by this post, despite knowing that some of these jobs are relatively skilled.
You missed the entirety of the point then.
Leftists aren’t calling any of the pictures “unskilled”. Capitalists are.
From essential workers to unskilled labor in one year!
Why can’t it be both? Just because the work you do can be done by anyone with minimal training, doesn’t mean it can’t be necessary work for society to function properly.
Because if they really were essential, they wouldn’t be paid slave wages.
You haven’t seen some of my coworkers then
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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