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I have no knowledge about snowplowing and I was just guessing that the cost of labor could be a factor. "Low-paying" jobs pay a lot better in Scandinavia than m
by mortenlarsen 5y ago
I have no knowledge about snowplowing and I was just guessing that the cost of labor could be a factor. "Low-paying" jobs pay a lot better in Scandinavia than most other places. Most (basically all) people are payed a living wage from a single full time (37-40 hours) job. I don't even know if being a snow-plow driver is a "low-paying" job, and I would guess that those who drive the plows have other tasks as well.
- bluGill 5y agoI too know nothing about Sweden. In the US snow plowing for the public roads is fairly well paying. You do road repair in summer, and in winter plow snow. Cost of labor is a factor, but it isn't the only one. As I said, you are far better of having enough to keep ahead of the worst possible case snowfall than less people who can handle only the normal snowfall and take weeks to dig out of the bad ones. And that is just the pure monitory costs of clearing snow and says nothing about the other costs to society from being slow to clear snow (emergency services for example)
- mortenlarsen 5y agoSince they are prioritizing and doing one before the other, I would guess that either they need the same people or the same machines to do it. I would expect different machines for the two tasks. So it must be people? Right? Anyway, I think their priorities are very sensible.
- bluGill 5y agoDifferent machine and different people both. There is no way around the fact that you need a lot of people to keep up with the snowfall, and falling behind is a lot more expensive in the long run. You can make something a priority, but the difference must be limited because of the nature of the ongoing work (unless you de-prioritize the other to the point where snow isn't plowed at all)