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It is not a non-problem for people without your privilege. Gig workers, immigrants and others with no viable options are forced to do these jobs or starve. All

It is not a non-problem for people without your privilege. Gig workers, immigrants and others with no viable options are forced to do these jobs or starve. All the while people complain about immigrants crossing the border and "taking their jobs". Graduating high school seniors aren't lining up to mow grass or pick fruit or work as a meat packer for $15/hour. They want to come out of college to a 6 figure job with no skills or training. It is going to be a long long time until we have enough automation to not need workers for things like picking apples, etc. A lot of people coming out of school with out a tech or medical disposition would be best served by picking a trade. We have a shortage already and it is only going to get worse. Running a 3 person plumbing company could easily compete with most tech jobs.

koolba 5y ago
> It is not a non-problem for people without your privilege. Gig workers, immigrants and others with no viable options are forced to do these jobs or starve. All the while people complain about immigrants crossing the border and "taking their jobs". That’s exactly what’s happening. With a steady flow of cheap labor to take these jobs, the wages for them will remain stagnant. It makes perfect sense for low income workers to be complaining about immigrants taking their jobs because that’s exactly what happens. Cut off illegal immigration for a few years and watch as the price of all unskilled labor increases. It’s basic supply and demand. The ones at the top generally don’t care because the people coming in are not competing for their jobs. And they arguably benefit from the cheap low end labor through lower prices for staples and even luxuries like landscapers and nannies. Even that is changing with remote work and offshoring. I don’t know if it will take five years or a decade, but the so called knowledge workers who don’t sock away their savings now are in for a rude awakening when their own paper pushing jobs get replaced.
- coderenegade 5y ago
  This is exactly right. Here in Australia, the borders have been closed for two years, and surprise surprise, we now have some of the lowest unemployment figures in the country's history. And for the first time in a generation, wages are starting to increase. For knowledge workers who want to work from home, the end result will be competing on a global market against workers from developing countries who can afford to do the same work for less. We already see this on various freelancing platforms where it's only a viable side gig for those in places with a low cost of living. At the end of the day, workers need some kind of protection against these movements, by putting local workers first and managing immigration to protect the middle and working classes. The problem is that we have a political class who have gotten rich on the back of removing such protections, because they're also business owners and property investors.
  - lanstin 5y ago
    And don’t forget helping the workers in low wage places to organize and get their fair share of revenue from the multinational corps. Long term, a more level income landscape world wide is needed to protect even domestic workers power/income.
  - MrMan 5y ago
    you may find that labor shortage and shrinking population takes some of the joy out of the exclusion of additional participants in your economy
gruez 5y ago
>It is not a non-problem for people without your privilege. Gig workers, immigrants and others with no viable options are forced to do these jobs or starve. Nothing I said precludes aid for these people, to ensure a minimum standard of living. I'm just pointing out the implied consequences of not making "non-STEM work to be a viable option", isn't we run out of farmers and we all starve because the market will correct it long before the number of farmers drop dangerously low. >All the while people complain about immigrants crossing the border and "taking their jobs". I don't get it. Just a few sentences ago you implied that the jobs are crap, and that people are "forced to do these jobs or starve", yet here you're implying that we should allow "immigrants crossing the border" to take those crap jobs? >Graduating high school seniors aren't lining up to mow grass or pick fruit or work as a meat packer for $15/hour. They want to come out of college to a 6 figure job with no skills or training. People don't want hard jobs and want easy money. Can you really blame them for that? Also, the solution to this, as mentioned in the previous comment is to raise wages. >A lot of people coming out of school with out a tech or medical disposition would be best served by picking a trade. We have a shortage already and it is only going to get worse. Running a 3 person plumbing company could easily compete with most tech jobs. In other words, the market is working as intended, by making jobs more lucrative because there's a shortage?

koolba 5y ago

> It is not a non-problem for people without your privilege. Gig workers, immigrants and others with no viable options are forced to do these jobs or starve. All the while people complain about immigrants crossing the border and "taking their jobs". That’s exactly what’s happening. With a steady flow of cheap labor to take these jobs, the wages for them will remain stagnant. It makes perfect sense for low income workers to be complaining about immigrants taking their jobs because that’s exactly what happens. Cut off illegal immigration for a few years and watch as the price of all unskilled labor increases. It’s basic supply and demand. The ones at the top generally don’t care because the people coming in are not competing for their jobs. And they arguably benefit from the cheap low end labor through lower prices for staples and even luxuries like landscapers and nannies. Even that is changing with remote work and offshoring. I don’t know if it will take five years or a decade, but the so called knowledge workers who don’t sock away their savings now are in for a rude awakening when their own paper pushing jobs get replaced.

coderenegade 5y ago
This is exactly right. Here in Australia, the borders have been closed for two years, and surprise surprise, we now have some of the lowest unemployment figures in the country's history. And for the first time in a generation, wages are starting to increase. For knowledge workers who want to work from home, the end result will be competing on a global market against workers from developing countries who can afford to do the same work for less. We already see this on various freelancing platforms where it's only a viable side gig for those in places with a low cost of living. At the end of the day, workers need some kind of protection against these movements, by putting local workers first and managing immigration to protect the middle and working classes. The problem is that we have a political class who have gotten rich on the back of removing such protections, because they're also business owners and property investors.
- lanstin 5y ago
  And don’t forget helping the workers in low wage places to organize and get their fair share of revenue from the multinational corps. Long term, a more level income landscape world wide is needed to protect even domestic workers power/income.
- MrMan 5y ago
  you may find that labor shortage and shrinking population takes some of the joy out of the exclusion of additional participants in your economy

gruez 5y ago

>It is not a non-problem for people without your privilege. Gig workers, immigrants and others with no viable options are forced to do these jobs or starve. Nothing I said precludes aid for these people, to ensure a minimum standard of living. I'm just pointing out the implied consequences of not making "non-STEM work to be a viable option", isn't we run out of farmers and we all starve because the market will correct it long before the number of farmers drop dangerously low. >All the while people complain about immigrants crossing the border and "taking their jobs". I don't get it. Just a few sentences ago you implied that the jobs are crap, and that people are "forced to do these jobs or starve", yet here you're implying that we should allow "immigrants crossing the border" to take those crap jobs? >Graduating high school seniors aren't lining up to mow grass or pick fruit or work as a meat packer for $15/hour. They want to come out of college to a 6 figure job with no skills or training. People don't want hard jobs and want easy money. Can you really blame them for that? Also, the solution to this, as mentioned in the previous comment is to raise wages. >A lot of people coming out of school with out a tech or medical disposition would be best served by picking a trade. We have a shortage already and it is only going to get worse. Running a 3 person plumbing company could easily compete with most tech jobs. In other words, the market is working as intended, by making jobs more lucrative because there's a shortage?