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There’s a very sizable number of low paying, dirty, dangerous, and/or boring jobs that we can’t find enough locals to do. Think farm hands, home care aides, mea

• zozbot234 2y ago
  These jobs are low-paying because they're broadly unproductive. If some of them weren't doing these jobs, the wages paid for them at the margin would increase. We are vastly better off importing more skilled immigrants to high-income countries, compared to unskilled ones.
  • lrem 2y ago
    How can you call literally feeding the people “broadly unproductive”? It’s low margin, but you can’t have a society supporting your margins without someone doing the bottom jobs.
    • petesergeant 2y ago
      Labour productivity has a specific meaning
      • gertlex 2y ago
        Enlighten us, then? And does "broadly unproductive" have a specific meaning, too?
  • s0rce 2y ago
    If we didn't have lower wage workers doing farm work food would be way more expensive and less diverse. I'm not sure how you judge the productivity of the worker...
  • energy123 2y ago
    That's an economically illiterate comment. You're confusing scarcity of labor, which determines price, with the utility that that labor generates.
    • stale2002 2y ago
      This isn't the 1900s, dude. If supply for labor goes a bit down, wages will increase a bit, and then companies will be incentivized to replace these bad jobs with automation. Those jobs going away, and wages going up, is a good thing not a bad thing. As few people should be doing those bad jobs as possible, and for the ones that do them, they should be paid more.
  • markdown 2y ago
    They are skilled. Try taking the best and brightest out of Silicon Valley and put them on farms, orchards, and in construction, and see how well they do. This elitist attitude that low-paid workers are "unskilled" workers is bullshit and needs to go.
    • zozbot234 2y ago
      You're absolutely right that 'skilled' is merely a relative term and ultimately a social construct. But nonetheless, the fact remains that those skills are so much more abundant and are not soaked up by existing demand (which would drive wage increases at the margin).
    • herewulf 2y ago
      As a software engineer who has done plenty of home improvement, gardening, automotive repair, etc, I think the best and brightest would learn quickly. Now, let's take the average farmer, orchard worker, construction worker, and then chuck them into a software job. They wouldn't know where to start and wouldn't get anywhere without the same educational basics that 99% of developers have gone through. That's not elitist, it's just reality. So, there's a clear distinction to be made and it's not necessary to water down every word in the English language because we're afraid of hurting someone's feelings.
      • MisterBastahrd 2y ago
        Uh-huh. Let's see all those soft keyboard jockeys be efficient at hanging drywall and working on a roof all day long with no air conditioning in Texas or Arizona. They won't. They don't have what it takes.
        • bavell 2y ago
          Not all of us "keyboard jockeys" grew up soft and sheltered in big cities. The dry heat of TX/AZ isn't that bad compared to the sweltering humidity of the southeast ;)
          • 2y ago
  • csomar 2y ago
    Construction in a tight real estate market is broadly unproductive?
• dgfitz 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • whimsicalism 2y ago
    if you don’t think lots of immigrants (and likely illegal immigrants) work as farm hands and at meat processor plants, you have clearly not spent much time in those industries https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2020-05-26/meatpacking-industry-immigrant-undocumented-workers https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2020-05-26/meatpacking-in... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/28/business/economy/immigration-california-farm-labor.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/28/business/economy/immigrat...
    • dgfitz 2y ago
      1.2% of the US population works on a farm. I imagine an order of magnitude less work at meat-packing plants.
• mixmastamyk 2y ago
  They're not all unskilled. Well-paying construction jobs, which used to be a path to the middle class, have been gutted (in the western US at least).
• tonynator 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • tstrimple 2y ago
    You're exactly the sort of person who also maintains that burger flippers don't deserve a liveable wage and that there's no such thing as a liveable wage outside of what the market dictates. You'll turn around and scream about inflation due to "highly paid Americans" picking fruit, and demand that something must be done about such outrages. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • tonynator 2y ago
      I fully support increased wages for menial jobs, as long as they're not going to illegals
      • ironhaven 2y ago
        So the illegal immigration issue is not important to you for its economics affects or changes to quality of life but just due to your fear of the other. Thank you for making your priorities more clear.
        • stale2002 2y ago
          > for its economics affects or changes to quality of life The premise of the comment that you are responding to is that because of supply and demand, and because these people are desperate, it reducing the wages for those jobs and makes those bad jobs worse. Thats horrible and less people should be doing those bad jobs, and the wages should increase! Desperate immigrants doing those jobs is just people pushing off bad things to a vulnerable population, and the world would be better off if those jobs got automated away entirely.
        • tonynator 2y ago
• sensanaty 2y ago
  They're low paying because (often illegal) immigrants from other countries either A) are happy to put up with what is a luxurious salary for back home, but barely liveable locally Or B) don't have a choice once they're in, since they practically become indentured servants In the Netherlands, no dutchie wants to work construction for example, because immigrants from Eastern Europe often take under-the-table deals where they get paid drastically less than what a Dutchie would command, though still much higher than any job they'd get back home. The same happens everywhere. The answer is NOT to bring the country down by mass-importing low skilled workers, but by forcing these hugely profitable companies to actually invest in the country and its citizens by paying all employees as it should.
  • systemtest 2y ago
    Both Dutch natives and EU-migrants are to be paid minimum wage, however it is a common trick when hiring migrants to charge them a ridiculous amount of rent for very sub-par accommodation nearby the jobsite. For example €600/month for a bunk-bed in a room with eight others. That is a way many temp agencies earn extra from migrants.
    • sensanaty 2y ago
      > Both Dutch natives and EU-migrants are to be paid minimum wage In theory, yes, but I know a decent number of my own countrymen (Serbians) that most definitely aren't legally employed in NL, but they're still working construction. It's vile, but it is what it is. (Not them, the companies are vile for what they're doing, the workers are simply surviving however they can)
    • 15155 2y ago
      Could it be possible that this bunk bed is then made a required (verbal - nobody put it in writing, of course) condition of employment?
      • systemtest 2y ago
        I don't know the contract details but these workers are picked up at the facility every day with an 8-person van and brought to the job site. Not only will it be very difficult to get a rental apartment for 2 months at less than €600/month, you also miss out on the transportation if you do. And these jobs are usually picking strawberries out in the rural sections or working for Amazon at some industrial estate that doesn't have public transit late at night.
• np- 2y ago
  I’m always deeply uncomfortable with this argument. It sounds like justification for a “slave” class to do undesirable jobs with no legal protections and sub minimum wage, just so Americans can save a few bucks at the supermarket. But at what moral cost? We can’t have it both ways—if they’re here working, then it needs to be at full American wage with full American regulation/oversight. But that itself defeats the purpose of hiring undocumented workers.
  • mrsalt 2y ago
    Why is it uncomfortable? It is the reality, and no one important wants to change it. There are plenty of immigrants working under the table. And there are plenty of employers willing to hire them. We do have it both ways.
  • kjkjadksj 2y ago
    Part of what perpetuates this sort of thing is a general idea in society that one can’t do or learn something because that’s not possible for them. I’m of the opinion that if sufficiently motivated and with sufficient constraints removed, anyone can learn and do anything. The only difference between an engineer and someone breaking their back for work is that the engineer was probably coddled from birth into being told they can do anything including engineering. Not as a pipe dream but a clear path: take these classes, apply to this college, take this internship, take this job. Meanwhile the laborer was probably told all their life they don’t have what it takes, either explicitly or not, and that thinking held them back their entire life. Why try hard in school if I am “not smart”? Why try and go to college if I can’t pay for it? Why not just do what my neighbor or my uncle does that I know is possible? Many people need to be reminded that everything is possible if they aren’t dissuaded by unhelpful ideas or people.
    • A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
      << I’m of the opinion that if sufficiently motivated and with sufficient constraints removed, anyone can learn and do anything. Anyone can do anything if they believe enough.. It is a nice sentiment and I cling to it myself more often than not, because there is something soothing about it. The unfortunate reality, however, is that being forced onto thing for which I have no predisposition, is, uhh, counterproductive at best. In short, I disagree with pre-supposition that your position requires ( we are all amorphous blobs that can be molded into whatever with sufficient amount of force ). And that is before we get to the question of whether it is even worthwhile to teach a kid with down syndrome calculus? Not possible. Worthwhile. << Many people need to be reminded that everything is possible if they aren’t dissuaded by unhelpful ideas or people. No. People need to understand themselves. They need to experience their limits and then cater to their strengths and weaknesses accordingly. It is unhelpful to think that billions people on this planet are interchangeable cogs. We are not. I am extremely unlikely to ever be like Georgi Gerganov. I simply do not believe I have the brain capacity needed. It is fine to aspire, but I am not changing the world tomorrow.
• coding123 2y ago
  Meat processors. No wonder listeria incidents, salmonella and a bunch of other food born diseases are on the rise.
• rangestransform 2y ago
  I think it would be better to legitimize migrant labour for those types of jobs a la Singapore
• bart_spoon 2y ago
  It’s shocking to me that the argument that consistently gets trotted out as to why we should accept illegal immigration is that they perform jobs too dangerous and poorly paid for non-illegal immigrants to do. Perhaps if there wasn’t a never ending stream of people so poor and powerless to take advantage of, these industries might be forced to pay livable wages or provide better protections. It’s insane that the supposedly progressive faction of American politics is arguing in favor of a system that amounts to a modern version of indentured servitude and systemic violation of labor rights, all for the sake of cheaper fruit and meat.