Would you (personally) trust me to build a bridge you cross everyday on your way to work, as someone who has never built anything before (other than software)?
You’re not giving a context.
Yes blue collar work is skilled in that not everyone can do it and some people do it better than others. You as someone not in that field can’t just take it up and be competent. Really there’s only general labor that’s not skilled anymore.
If the context is special work visas, supposedly these are skills that can’t be found domestically. So no, blue collar jobs and most white collar jobs are not skilled. …. And there’s a good argument that the distinction is companies not wanting to pay more
There is both skilled and unskilled people in blue and white collar jobs.
Just tell a master mason that his job is “unskilled”. You may keep the black eye for free…
“Skilled” and “unskilled” work? I reject this Americanism.
It is the basis of visas around the world, bad as that may be.
Eh, more or less skilled, sure, but “unskilled” is never accurate. I say this as someone who’s very clumsy by nature and takes forever to do manual tasks that others won’t struggle as much with. I know that there’s a lower floor of skill (the floor I inhabit 😭), so they can’t just be doing “unskilled” tasks.
Oh yeah. Fair enough. I was thinking more “skilled”.
Work is work, no need for distinction. Capitalists don’t work, that’s all you need.
No war but class war.
By “blue collar work” do you mean that done by mechanics, carpenters, masons, plumbers, electricians, machinists, tool operators and repairmen? because yes I do.
There is no such thing as unskilled labor.
Unskilled labor has nothing to do with skills. It’s a euphemism for easily replaceable workers.
people always say this, but I don’t recall anybody proposing a better term
I agree with your statement, but I recognize that the term “unskilled” in this context means something different than you and I would like it to
This is a very optimistic but ultimately baseless “feel-good” take.
I don’t think we should discount the importance of unskilled labor, or even its difficulty, but unskilled labor most certainly does exist.
Eh. There are definitely jobs that you can grab random guys off the street for and they will be okay enough at them to get started right away or will be able to be trained to do them in an afternoon. Think of any time you’ve done a volunteering project - you don’t get any specialized training to do this type of work, but you can go ahead and get started with maybe like a short explanation of how it works. Sure you won’t be as good as a pro, but you could get up to speed quite quickly if it was all you were doing. These types of jobs are becoming less and less common as they get automated, but they do still exist. That is what is meant by “unskilled labor.” It’s not a dig at the people who do these types of jobs, but rather that you don’t need specialized training to do them.
Just because the skills required for a job are very common doesn’t mean the labor is unskilled. That is a myth made up by the 1% to divide the working class and pit us against each other.
You’re trying to make a weird semantic distinction that doesn’t really accomplish anything. Unskilled labor doesn’t mean undignified or unworthy of respect, it is just a description of a certain kind of work with essentially no barrier to entry. Again it’s very uncommon in modern advanced economies but in the past (and today in some very poor areas) you’d have people whose job it was to push millstones around in a circle all day, a job that is also done by literal donkeys. That is not skilled labor.
Then you should see me when I try to repair something
Any job will require a mix of hard and soft skills. Both are important, and both need training.
It takes zero skill to pickup a box and move it. skill
Skill
[skil]/ skɪl /
noun
the ability, coming from one’s knowledge, practice, aptitude, etc., to do something well.
Carpentry was one of his many skills.
Synonyms:facility, proficiencyAntonyms:inability
competent excellence in performance; expertness; dexterity.
The dancers performed with skill.
Synonyms:cleverness, deftness
a craft, trade, or job requiring manual dexterity or special training in which a person has competence and experience.
the skill of cabinetmaking.
Origin and history of skill
skill(n.)
early 12c., “knowledge, divine wisdom;” late 12c., “power of discernment, sound judgment; that which is reasonable,” senses all now obsolete, from Old Norse skil “distinction, ability to make out, discernment, adjustment,” which is related to skilja (v.) “to separate; discern, understand,” from Proto-Germanic *skaljo- “divide, separate” (source also of Swedish skäl “reason,” Danish skjel “a separation, boundary, limit,” Middle Low German schillen “to differ,” Middle Low German, Middle Dutch schele “separation, discrimination;” from PIE root *skel- (1) “to cut”).
Haha, bunch of people got their knkckers in a twist cause they don’t like being schooled on how wrong they are.
Guess what? The guy who picks up boxes ask day for a job will do it better and faster than you. That fits perfectly with your definition of “skill”.
I have absolutly seen people who are unskilled at picking up and moving boxes. It’s not a task with a high skill floor, or a particularily high skill ceiling, but it exists.
And somehow my company has been uniformly capable of identifying and hiring these people.
As someone who’s had multiple surgeries that forced them to re-learn how to use their own muscles, anything that requires purposeful muscle movement is a skill. And even if it wasn’t, there aren’t any jobs that have you move a box. There are, however, jobs that require you to move a box to a specific known location without breaking the contents of the box, which is a skill.
Sorry, no. If you can train someone how to do the job within an afternoon, it’s not the kind of “skilled” people are talking about. Moving like a healthy human is not a skill. We are built to carry things. Being pedantic about it helps no one.
Just look at the comment I responded to for the definition; if you’re doing an activity well, it’s a skill. You might disagree, but that’s between you and the dictionary. The rest of us will be here working on making sure people are paid well regardless of whether or not you think their work isn’t “skilled” enough.
White collar and blue collar is orthogonal to skill. Their are jobs in both categories that a monkey could do, and other jobs that take years and years of skill development to do well.
I am a tradesman
I also have a bachelor of science degree
What I do is most definitely skilled labour
The bullshit, classist crap about what is and is not skilled labour is pathetic
I can promise that when the chips are down, the most useless people are the ones who sneer at those of us with calloused hands
I respect the fuck out of anyone who does jobs I can’t or don’t want to. The guy who empties septic tanks has my genuine respect and appreciation because if not for him I would have a really shitty job on my hands. Hopefully the humor doesn’t undercut the sincerity of my comment.
how is it classist?
People who work with their hands are almost always considered ‘lower class.’
A paralegal who earns $50,000 a year is considered to be most prestigious than a plumber who earns three times as much.
It doesn’t matter that the plumber has a greater range of knowledge than the paralegal, only that they come home with dirty hands.
What paralegal shit in your cheerios?
Dude, come on, don’t be disingenuous, this is well established.
The trades have been denigrated for decades, despite many of them being well-paying, secure jobs that require significant re-training and re-certification on a regular basis.
Well you seem to be acting disingenuous yourself by denigrating other professions you dont respect in turn. How is that fair? They’re already paid far less (and probably far less than they’re worth) you think it’s justifiable to say that they’re suddenly tantamount to the “unskilled” labor you feel trades are left under.
You dont elevate yourself by punching down, you just make more room below you.
found the paralegal
you think it’s justifiable to say that they’re suddenly tantamount to the “unskilled” labor you feel trades are left under.
I feel you’ve grossly misunderstood their arguments.
It already is considered skilled labor.
It usually is. True unskilled labor is becoming less and less common as machines take over those tasks. Unskilled labor means that you could get any random person off the street and, if they had the physical ability to do the work (such as lifting heavy objects) they could do it with minimal training. Think of the type of thing you do at volunteering events where you get at most like a 30 minute explanation of what the job is and are set off with your task, or just moving a heavy object you can’t move yourself. It’s not that you can’t be skilled at these jobs, but rather that there is little to no barrier to entry for starting and actually doing the job. This type of job was way more common most places in the past, where you had people whose job it was to mill grain by pushing a giant wheel, or people whose job it was to break rocks apart by hitting them with a hammer. Sure you can be better or worse at this, but it’s not like you couldn’t figure it out very quickly.
These days, true unskilled labor is pretty rare in advanced economies. You have to have a lot of knowledge of how to use some kind of machinery or equipment, or how to do some kind of craft. The closest is something like low level retail work but even then that requires more skill than traditional “unskilled labor” required- skills such as reading, writing, and counting money, and even fast food jobs usually require training periods.
You can develop a high level of skill at anything, is more a question of how important that is. In particular, you might say how important that is to people doing the hiring. It is clear for many jobs, they don’t care. Some minimum wage jobs they will virtually take anyone with a pulse.
With white collar jobs it is a little more complicated. Project management is software is a position where i’ve often seen people with absolutely no skill helpful to the job. They may have needed a certain amount of political skill, or ass-kissing skill, or knowing how to say the right things, sling buzz words kind of skill. Skills that don’t actually help be effective at the job itself.
I’ve also met entirely unskilled projects management but the organizational and people skills needed to do well absolutely are skills
I can complete the tasks for a project manager. But have neither the organizational skills nor people skills to do it well
Coming up on annual review time at work, one of my successes this year was to persuade a project manager to take up my initiative- while the work needed is easy for me, now I have someone applying it across 50 teams and I can’t compete with that
Blue collar (blue coveralls class) is just a derogatory term to describe someone that doesn’t wear a white collar (business suit class) to work. But it sorta turned into a badge of honor by the blue collar class over the years, but it’s meant to be an insult by the white color class.
It has nothing to do with skilled or non-skilled labor or education, it’s supposed to be an insult based on the clothes required to wear to work.
it was a way for the ownership to group the chattel. Some were restrained by blue collars and some by white. It also helped encourage rivalary between them to work out their aggression and reduce what comes to their masters.
I go by…
- Skilled labour: Jobs that require education or extensive training to be able to perform
- Semi-skilled labour: Jobs that require minimal or no education, but require some extent of on-the-job training to be able to perform the basic duties.
- Unskilled labour: Jobs that require no education, and can be effectively performed on day one by a new hire.
I’m sure there’s also a “highly skilled labour” category that encompasses jobs that require extensive education, training, and practice, but I’m not really sure where to draw the line.
can be effectively performed on day one by a new hire.
If such a job exists, I’ve never seen it. A first day worker on ANY job won’t be as efficient as someone with experience. Even a ditch digger has skills.
no shit they won’t be as efficient. but they can do it without requiring weeks or months or years of training
edit: to clarify, I also don’t think that there’s a job where somebody can effectively perform it on day one (unless they have already learned the skills in a previous job in a similar role). but I do think that there are jobs where somebody can become a net contributor within a few days. like vacuuming. I used to have a job vacuuming apartment buildings and doing general cleaning maintenance. two days of training and I was good to go for all the buildings in the roster
In the first part of your edit, you explain why there’s no such thing as unskilled labor.
I think the confusion here is that you are saying “unskilled” when you mean " skills that have been picked up without education", or “skills I assume can be picked up quickly”
Find me someone from an ancient civilization and see how well they vacuum without any training.
On day one is a bit steep. Most unskilled kinds of jobs, like retail, include a week or two of training where you’re only sort-of useful to your employer. Really really simple jobs (breaking rocks, digging trenches, turning wheels) have mostly been subsumed by machines.
From an employment market perspective, a better question is if you need to have training already to get hired, and if it’s on-the-job kind of training (aka. semiskilled) or you spend significant time as a student.
I think in some unskilled labour, you can provide value on day one. You won’t know all the processes, but you’d be able to perform some of the duties. Cleaning up, stocking shelves, etc.
That’s probably exclusively American term. I couldn’t ever imagine calling a tradesman an “unskilled” labourer. You’ll get a quick nosejob that way.
You wouldn’t say this of a tradesman. Such people pass tests about meeting code, etc.
Unskilled labor is essentially labor that anyone with 4 limbs can do.
I’d call that unskilled, as someone who’s done that kind of work. I’ve been the labor for a plumber, digging up septic pipes. Doesn’t take any skill for that, just a willingness to sweat and get nasty. The plumber however definitely had skills, and I learned a LOT from him.
Yeah you’d probably have a bad day in America too. I think the person asking the question just doesn’t know what blue collar or skilled labor means.
That implies there is unskilled labour. What jobs require no skills to perform? Except manglement.
Bro there were people back in the day who would just push a heavy millstone around in a circle, a job that was often also done by literal donkeys. It’s hard to imagine in a modern economy, where truly unskilled labor is rare, but it exists. We often forget how much is done by machines that was done by laborers in the past or still is in poorer countries.
It’s more a definition of how much training is required.
In a crisis, I know that I’m infinitely more capable and useful than someone who shuffles paper and pretends that they add value to society
I’ve had a few jobs when I was young that required no skill.
And they were?
Newspaper round, washing dishes in a pub and putting seeds in soil in containers at a plant nursery.
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I call bull.
It takes skill to do anything. Mopping a floor, washing a window, making a bed, or bagging groceries.
Newspaper round, washing dishes in a pub kitchen and working in a plant nursery putting seeds into soil in their trays.
None of them required any training, anyone could have done those jobs.
Training=/= skill
I washed dishes. You can do a bad job or a good job.
Same with all the others.
I agree with your passion, but I think you’re digging too deep into the semantics. Sure, after time, we can expect someone to become more skilled at an “unskilled” position, but that’s bending the definition of the term.
This man needs an appendectomy.
This canyon needs a 200m bridge that will be able to hold 4 lanes of traffic.
This floor needs mopped.
98% of people would have no idea where to even start on the first two jobs. THAT is the difference between skilled and unskilled.
“unskilled” directly refers to the amount of training a job requires to do it. Anyone can wash dishes or do a newspaper round without any training. It’s not a skill to wash a plate properly.
Anyone can do an unskilled job and be efficient at it in a short space of time.
But does it require skill to do the job or does skill just make a person better at the job?
A plumber can’t be a plumber without years of training and experience. There is no apprentice dishwasher or master dishwasher, just about anyone with two hands and willing to stand in one place for hours can do the job. I washed dishes at a fast food deli for three months for a summer job in highschool. It’s thankless hard work but it was mindless work and required no skill, I washed dishes zoned out and on autopilot most of the time. I’m sure there are skilled dishwashers that can was them the fastest or cleanest, but washing dishes doesn’t require skill, it requires work ethic, it requires completing the task of washing the dishes. There’s no 100 other tasks required to do or learn before becoming a dishwasher.
If any functioning human can walk in and do the job then it’s not “skilled” labor. Having a good work ethic doesn’t equal skilled labor.
“Skilled” labor is someone that spent years honing their craft and making a complicated “job” look like a simple effortless task because they spent years learning how to do it and perfecting it, hours of prep and planning. That’s is “skilled” labor.
That’s EXACTLY what it means - anyone can do it.
It does not take any level of skill to do any of those things. It takes effort, for sure.
Mopping a floor takes zero skill.
Said by the guy who never mopped a floor
Shopping cart return, grocery bagging, dishwashing etc.
Digging up a septic system requires no skill.
Moving pabel forms for concrete requires no skill - the GC or foreman will direct how it’s done.
Lots and lots of stuff requires no particular skill.
It’s not about whether or not you require knowledge or abilities to perform the jobs, but whether or not you are expected to already have certain qualifications to even get the job. So unskilled labour just means that it’s an entry point - you can learn it on the go.
I do not disagree that these terms are less important in today’s world where everything is overly automated and the entry-level has risen. But these terms did have their purpose. And not the wording “unskilled” has changed our society’s discriminating look on these jobs, but it’s the other way around.
