4 ms·

That article is several years old now, and maybe there are some regional factors at play, but as a farmer myself, these days I regularly see offers of $20/hour

That article is several years old now, and maybe there are some regional factors at play, but as a farmer myself, these days I regularly see offers of $20/hour if you're willing to show up, and closer to $30+/hour if you bring any skills to the table. Despite that, there is still is a lot of struggle to fill those jobs. And maybe the price just needs to go higher still. I'm not going to tell someone how much they have to work for. But it's interesting that – once you account for the significantly lower cost of living generally found in these rural areas – you're practically making programmer in a big city wages now and that's still not appealing to someone who is unemployed. In a lot of ways, I think enraged_camel (and cobo) hit the nail on the head[1]. Nobody wants the identity of working on a farm. There are a lot of negative connotations related to that type of work that have been built up over the years. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14074922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14074922

therpe1 10y ago
It's not "negative connotations" -- there are in fact enormous opportunity costs for such low-skilled, seasonal work. Nobody in their right mind would spend 10 hours a day kneeling in the fields picking tomatoes given (1) you are employed on literally a daily basis meaning on any given day you might show up and be told there's "no more work" which means (2) you literally have to go from farm to farm, moving around constantly, to find work, since no job generally lasts more than 3 months and which really means (3) there are literally zero benefits available at each job. To put a pretty penny on it farms tend to be in rural areas that offer very little in the way of infrastructure and amenities. Price simply isn't the issue here, when you look at what's actually involved agriculture does not offer anything like a "job" it just offers dumb work, in the purest sense of the word. That means it will always get done by poor, transitory, essentially enslaved populations that have zero other avenues for work. (This has been the essential logic of human history since literally the dawn of time so I'm a bit at a loss when I see people discussing farm labor salaries...) There's a remarkable consistency at work here. Between Trump advocating to bring back coal jobs and others calling for better paid farmhands to the silly article suggesting that wind turbines can support anything like the number of jobs supported by coal plants... it seems like just a remarkable failure of imagination across the board.
xapata 10y ago
Then the wages aren't high enough. Oil rig employees get paid plenty.
- randomdata 10y ago
  Great example. Huge pay by every metric, and plenty by your own assertion, and they still struggled to fill all the jobs at that price, at least before the crash. I think this really emphasizes how image plays the most important role.
  - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
    I think that has more to do with the huge lifestyle sacrifices necessary to work on an oil rig.
    - cathartes 10y ago
      The folks I know who worked the rigs during the "boom years" came only to earn as much as they could before burn-out finally did them in. Some of them miss the pay, but none of them seem to miss the job.
chrisbennet 10y ago
Farm labor tends to be seasonal; making programmer wages for a few weeks and then being unemployed might not be as attractive as a steady but lower paying job.
- randomdata 10y ago
  The jobs I'm thinking of are full time, year round, but I understand that may be an issue in some segments of agriculture.

therpe1 10y ago

It's not "negative connotations" -- there are in fact enormous opportunity costs for such low-skilled, seasonal work. Nobody in their right mind would spend 10 hours a day kneeling in the fields picking tomatoes given (1) you are employed on literally a daily basis meaning on any given day you might show up and be told there's "no more work" which means (2) you literally have to go from farm to farm, moving around constantly, to find work, since no job generally lasts more than 3 months and which really means (3) there are literally zero benefits available at each job. To put a pretty penny on it farms tend to be in rural areas that offer very little in the way of infrastructure and amenities. Price simply isn't the issue here, when you look at what's actually involved agriculture does not offer anything like a "job" it just offers dumb work, in the purest sense of the word. That means it will always get done by poor, transitory, essentially enslaved populations that have zero other avenues for work. (This has been the essential logic of human history since literally the dawn of time so I'm a bit at a loss when I see people discussing farm labor salaries...) There's a remarkable consistency at work here. Between Trump advocating to bring back coal jobs and others calling for better paid farmhands to the silly article suggesting that wind turbines can support anything like the number of jobs supported by coal plants... it seems like just a remarkable failure of imagination across the board.

xapata 10y ago

Then the wages aren't high enough. Oil rig employees get paid plenty.

randomdata 10y ago
Great example. Huge pay by every metric, and plenty by your own assertion, and they still struggled to fill all the jobs at that price, at least before the crash. I think this really emphasizes how image plays the most important role.
- TheCoelacanth 10y ago
  I think that has more to do with the huge lifestyle sacrifices necessary to work on an oil rig.
  - cathartes 10y ago
    The folks I know who worked the rigs during the "boom years" came only to earn as much as they could before burn-out finally did them in. Some of them miss the pay, but none of them seem to miss the job.

chrisbennet 10y ago

Farm labor tends to be seasonal; making programmer wages for a few weeks and then being unemployed might not be as attractive as a steady but lower paying job.

randomdata 10y ago
The jobs I'm thinking of are full time, year round, but I understand that may be an issue in some segments of agriculture.