this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
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No, when I say “unskilled labour isn’t a thing” that’s also precisely what I mean. The term indicates that you do not require any sort of skill before doing it; a literal infant could do it. As far as I am aware, no such labour actually exists.
Are we saying that certain labour requires formal education? Why wouldn’t we simply use a term reflecting that, in that case? I don’t have any formal education in software development, I am entirely autodidact. A profession born from too much free time and not enough friends. Now I’m a professional dev, making software that is core to operations to one of the biggest (in terms of GDP) corporations in my country.
Is my job then unskilled labour, or am I an unskilled labourer performing skilled labour? In which case, can the labour really be that skilled if an unskilled labourer can do it? If say a taxi driver helps deliver a baby, does that make obstetrics a non-skilled profession, or is it just the birthing part that doesn’t require skill? For that matter, my roomie did actually go through a one year course before he got his trucking license, does that make it a skilled profession?
It’s a nonsense term. Unskilled labour isn’t a thing; all labour require a measure of skill.
Everything requires skills, yes. Some skills take longer to acquire. It's the difference between taking a random adult on the street and teaching them to perform a job within a week versus a year or more. Whether or not you're self taught doesn't change the fact that it didn't take you a week to learn to code and it's not something that's part of a standard curriculum most adults would've gone through.
If you don't think "unskilled" reflects this distinction properly, suggestions for alternatives are welcome. But I still think this is a distraction from the main problem.
Maybe specialized vs general labour?
Sorry, but a shovel is unskilled labour. A forklift driver is absolutely not. In the sense that you quite literally need prior qualifications in order to do it, it's not something any basically functioning adult can do with on-the-job training.
I've never heard of someone working as a shovel. That said, being able to shovel stuff all day without hurting yourself definitely takes skill.
Using the definition provided by @[email protected] (appearing as "ObjectivityIncarnate"), yes, they meet that definition. Forklift drivers are not trained on the job, they need a specific licence. That makes it not unskilled labour.
You're equivocating "skilled" in the same way the OP of this comment chain was to "unskilled". You're doing the equivalent of saying "a feather can't be dark, because feathers are light." Stop playing stupid semantic games.
In the context of labor metrics, "skilled" and "unskilled" are not descriptors of overall difficulty. I've already posted a reminder of what the terms mean in this context above your comment, so there's no excuse.
lol, you gave me the mental image of someone opening the dictionary to look up a word, seeing its definition, then scoffing as you point at it, saying "That's horseshit!"
Your comment has been removed due to using a slur. Please be more inclusive of our friends and allies with mental disabilities in the future.
Your comment has been removed due to using a slur. Please be more inclusive of our friends and allies with mental disabilities in the future.