Ok, legit question time. What can we do to tackle the issues surrounding the terms skilled and unskilled labor in today’s world?
Back in the “old days” we had terms like skilled and unskilled labor to discuss labor that required training vs work that you could just basically show up and start doing with minimal explanation of what to do.
These days though, pretty much every job out there requires at the very least multiple days to weeks of training, even ones that don’t require trade school or college education (seriously, go try to do a job at McDonald’s with no training, you can’t)
The main focus that has been seen now with skilled/unskilled is that it’s often used as a way (OUTSIDE OF ACADEMIA) to label people as less worthy than those who have gone to college, which only helps to continue the stigma against poor or people who cannot qualify for certain grants/afford to take time off from work to go to college. It can also be seen in how we look at racial and ethnic divides in the workforce.
A white person in an “unskilled labor” position is just doing it to pay for college, or to get some extra funds, or it’s a “first time job” while a person of color is looked at like they’re just not trying hard enough if they’re in those positions. Or worse, it’s EXPECTED that they work in those positions, such…
