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I'm not so sure. I think we will continue to create highly skilled jobs, but I just don't see where unskilled labour gets a look-in in the new economy - In the

I'm not so sure. I think we will continue to create highly skilled jobs, but I just don't see where unskilled labour gets a look-in in the new economy - In the past, it was reasonably easy to see where new jobs might come from, whereas I just don't see anything much coming up. We're even replacing more and more service jobs, which were what took over as farming and industry employment declined. I agree, there will probably be more wealth - I just think the distribution of that wealth may well be societally damaging.

chc 15y ago
If they have no skills, they never had very good prospects. Even "simple" farmhands need to have some skill at tending to the farm. It's not like you could just stand by a conveyor belt with a dumb look on your face and call yourself a factory worker for very long.
- gaius 15y ago
  No-one who's ever farmed would say farming is unskilled. Just as I'm sure, programming would look just like typing to a farmer.
  - chc 15y ago
    That was my point, and why I wrote "simple" in quotation marks. Even jobs that are viewed as "unskilled" generally involve some kind of skill — farmhands, factory workers, customer service representatives, etc. Any job that truly requires no skill essentially has no job security anyway, as the worker literally brings nothing to the table. The actual complaint here is that the demand for various skills waxes and wanes.
    - AlisdairO 15y ago
      Jobs like working in mcdonalds obviously require a certain skillset, but that skillset can be taught in a very limited timeframe, as opposed to skilled jobs where that educations takes a much longer amount of time. I'm saying that the availability of such jobs seems to be on the wane. I appreciate that such jobs are undesirable, but they're much in demands by those unable to take up a skilled trade, or those whose skillset has been rendered obsolete. They might not be great jobs, but they beat the alternative of nothing.
- AlisdairO 15y ago
  Right. I'm using the traditional definition of 'unskilled labour', which is generally that which does not require a high degree of training/education - not none at all. I believe that this class of labour is reducing in availability - which is a problem for a substantial proportion of the population. I wonder if this will have knock-on implications for those of us who have relatively high levels of training. Right now, if my specialism becomes obsolete I can at least pick up a non-specialist alternative job - will this be the case in the future?
quanticle 15y ago
Of course, definitions of skilled and unskilled labor change too. A reasonably skilled cotton picker is still "unskilled labor" to an economy that needs machinists. A highly trained machinist is equivalently unskilled in an economy that requires programmers.

chc 15y ago

If they have no skills, they never had very good prospects. Even "simple" farmhands need to have some skill at tending to the farm. It's not like you could just stand by a conveyor belt with a dumb look on your face and call yourself a factory worker for very long.

gaius 15y ago
No-one who's ever farmed would say farming is unskilled. Just as I'm sure, programming would look just like typing to a farmer.
- chc 15y ago
  That was my point, and why I wrote "simple" in quotation marks. Even jobs that are viewed as "unskilled" generally involve some kind of skill — farmhands, factory workers, customer service representatives, etc. Any job that truly requires no skill essentially has no job security anyway, as the worker literally brings nothing to the table. The actual complaint here is that the demand for various skills waxes and wanes.
  - AlisdairO 15y ago
    Jobs like working in mcdonalds obviously require a certain skillset, but that skillset can be taught in a very limited timeframe, as opposed to skilled jobs where that educations takes a much longer amount of time. I'm saying that the availability of such jobs seems to be on the wane. I appreciate that such jobs are undesirable, but they're much in demands by those unable to take up a skilled trade, or those whose skillset has been rendered obsolete. They might not be great jobs, but they beat the alternative of nothing.
AlisdairO 15y ago
Right. I'm using the traditional definition of 'unskilled labour', which is generally that which does not require a high degree of training/education - not none at all. I believe that this class of labour is reducing in availability - which is a problem for a substantial proportion of the population. I wonder if this will have knock-on implications for those of us who have relatively high levels of training. Right now, if my specialism becomes obsolete I can at least pick up a non-specialist alternative job - will this be the case in the future?

quanticle 15y ago

Of course, definitions of skilled and unskilled labor change too. A reasonably skilled cotton picker is still "unskilled labor" to an economy that needs machinists. A highly trained machinist is equivalently unskilled in an economy that requires programmers.