Ever seen someone doing their “unskilled job” all their life? It’s just fucking magic!
The truth is that capitalists hate skilled workers, because those workers have bargaining power. This is why they love the sort of automation which completely removes workers or thought from the equation, even if the ultimate solution is multiple times more expensive or less competent than before.
Nothing is more infuriating to a boss, than a worker that can talk back with experience.
First, I don’t think “unskilled jobs” is used correctly most of the time and agree with you 99%. My quibble is that people often say “unskilled jobs” to mean “jobs that can be learned to do adequately without prior experience.” Some, not most, of the jobs you show fit that category. I wish we had a corrolary to this meme to express the benefit employers get from employees who become skilled at these roles. Purely economically, if I am a manager who can hire someone who has gained great experience and can hit the job running day 1 at an “unskilled” job instead of having to train and performance manage a truly “unskilled” candidate, it would easily justify a 50-100% pay increase as it reduces the cost of management by more than that.
I think Superstore says it best:
The problem is that people generally look down on these types of jobs. Blue collar vs white collar.
Everyone deserves a
livingthriving wage. You know what’s impressive? A cashier who has memorized every produce code whereas I struggle to remember the syntax of a foreach loop and I have to look it up each time. Wtf is a map type?! When did that become a thing?!