Ask Lemmy

There is no such thing as unskilled labor.

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

It already is considered skilled labor.

Work is work, no need for distinction. Capitalists don't work, that's all you need.

No war but class war.

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.

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.

"Skilled" and "unskilled" work? I reject this Americanism.

That implies there is unskilled labour. What jobs require no skills to perform? Except manglement.

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.

Blue collar and skilled aren't mutually exclusive terms.

It's skilled or unskilled (takes advanced training or not)

And blue collar or white collar (manual labor or office/desk work)

E.g., a welder is both skilled and blue collar

By "blue collar work" do you mean that done by mechanics, carpenters, masons, plumbers, electricians, machinists, tool operators and repairmen? because yes I do.

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.

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.

Of course it should. I feel it's kinda obvious. Do you think it shouldn't?

There is the quality known in German as fingerspitzgefühl (literally “fingertip feeling”): the ability of an experienced worker to gauge the situation they’re dealing with from perception and past experience, in ways that one can’t codify into a ring binder of rules. It comes with experience and is a skill. And this applies to even the most menial labour: anything requiring effort has more and less efficient ways of doing it, as well as hazards.

The fact that fingerspitzgefühl cannot be codified into intellectual property and rented out to interchangeable low-paid day labourers must be burning up the owners, once again robbed of the dream of independence from those who actually do their work. Some argue that that’s what’s driving the vast amount of investment in AI: a push to deskill labour once and for all, eliminating human fingerspitzgefühl and replacing it with reverse centaurs following orders from their VR glasses.

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...

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)?

The only unskilled labor is done by people that just sit around all day telling other people what to do.

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