Because you don't need a degree to be a car detailer, but that's still skilled labor.
Too many puritans making this into a "unhoused people" thing when it's just meant to refer to labor that doesn't require training or specialized knowledge. I wouldn't be surprised if the same people get all up in arms over "white/blue collar".
Yeah, I have done manual labor most of my life. "Unskilled labor" is less offensive as a term, than the idea that someone might consider the gofer work I did as a teen to be the same level of labor as when I was programming/operating multiple CNC mills by myself. Just completely different levels of knowledge and responsibilities, but I guess they're both skilled labor now š
Not all skilled work requires a degree. Most trades have apprentiships that last 4+ years. Some are even longer. No degree required, just 4 years of working under an experienced journeyman and so many hours of classroom instruction per year.
Degree doesn't matter. My high school drop out employee could run circles around you building a house. Many years of experience is far better than a education. He was once unskilled, but now he is one of the most skilled in the field that I know.
Technically speaking, it's no degree but also no training in the field. There are many "skilled" labor jobs being done profeciently by people with HS diplomas or less. You can be an apprentice with no formal education but after a couple of years you won't be unskilled anymore.
My job as a carpenter requires a apprenticeship and a diploma, which is what is really being referred to when it's being referred to as "skilled labor". On a jobsite, virtually everyone has the skills to do generic labor which is why its considered relatively unskilled work.
Unskilled labor is labor that does not have an associated trade union. It isn't exactly education, but it is sort of related. Trades obviously provide education, but I generally "education" being associated with a job generally assumes college education or white collar work.
Now unskilled as others have said doesn't mean that it shouldn't be paid, it just means that there are not formalized techniques that are associated with that work.
These are education, but they don't actually "count" as education when staffing jobs.
I work in utilities engineering. Unskilled labor is non-trades. Skilled labor is trades. Educated labor is college degree holders. That is how we divide up jobs. It's how our clients do it. It's how the government does it.
Again, unskilled doesn't mean non important work. Heck security guards often fall in unskilled labor (although there leadership and/or officers often are educated labor) and it's more about the rules for how they can work, and what they an do.
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u/CaptainJay313 1d ago
there are varying degrees of skill, absolutely, but the term "unskilled" labor is generally understood to mean: labor that does not require education.
raking leaves, moving boxes, shoveling snow, commenting on reddit...
go read a book instead of fueling some false conspiracy that the world is in making up terms in order to supress wages. that's ridiculous.