3 ms·

I've come to believe that all labor is skilled, all that matters is how much training and/or experience is required to make them able to do the job that differs

I've come to believe that all labor is skilled, all that matters is how much training and/or experience is required to make them able to do the job that differs.

PeterisP 4y ago
But that's kind of the point -all that matters is how much training and/or experience is required to make them able to do the job, but the differences can be quite large. We establish a difference between jobs where that training is relatively short (and thus we can expect it to happen on-site by the company who can hire people from other positions and have them do the new job) and the jobs where that training takes many years and thus requires significant pre-commitment and long-term planning to ensure that they can be filled. For the purposes of crude statistics we pick an arbitrary line and label the jobs with <1 year of job-specific training required (starting from generic knowledge e.g. highschool or a degree in some other field) as "unskilled" and >1 year job-specific training required as "skilled"; but the key point is that there is a substantial qualitative difference between roles where you can "swap" people from one industry to another, and roles where that doesn't make sense at scale - while some individuals do switch high-investment careers, you're not going to solve a pandemic-prelate doctor shortage by re-purposing excess lawyers, but in that same pandemic you can solve a delivery driver shortage by re-purposing excess cashiers. Similarly in IT, the jobs which can be done by putting someone through an x-week boot camp do need different treatment from managers and policy-makers than the tech jobs which do require much more training and/or experience.
tick_tock_tick 4y ago
You're just being pedantic that's exactly what skilled vs unskilled labor means.

3 ms·

I've come to believe that all labor is skilled, all that matters is how much training and/or experience is required to make them able to do the job that differs

by lazypenguin 4y ago

I've come to believe that all labor is skilled, all that matters is how much training and/or experience is required to make them able to do the job that differs.

PeterisP 4y ago
But that's kind of the point -all that matters is how much training and/or experience is required to make them able to do the job, but the differences can be quite large. We establish a difference between jobs where that training is relatively short (and thus we can expect it to happen on-site by the company who can hire people from other positions and have them do the new job) and the jobs where that training takes many years and thus requires significant pre-commitment and long-term planning to ensure that they can be filled. For the purposes of crude statistics we pick an arbitrary line and label the jobs with <1 year of job-specific training required (starting from generic knowledge e.g. highschool or a degree in some other field) as "unskilled" and >1 year job-specific training required as "skilled"; but the key point is that there is a substantial qualitative difference between roles where you can "swap" people from one industry to another, and roles where that doesn't make sense at scale - while some individuals do switch high-investment careers, you're not going to solve a pandemic-prelate doctor shortage by re-purposing excess lawyers, but in that same pandemic you can solve a delivery driver shortage by re-purposing excess cashiers. Similarly in IT, the jobs which can be done by putting someone through an x-week boot camp do need different treatment from managers and policy-makers than the tech jobs which do require much more training and/or experience.
tick_tock_tick 4y ago
You're just being pedantic that's exactly what skilled vs unskilled labor means.