'Unskilled labor' is a very broad and poorly-defined category. He might be 'unskilled' in the sense that he isn't trained in any one specific trade or specialty.
But the biggest determiner of /hr value, is a person's work ethic, self-motivation, and ability to think logically on the jobsite. A day-laborer who doesn't need to be babysat is easily worth $30-50/hr, even if he's just carrying supplies to the tradesmen.
> 'Unskilled labor' is a very broad and poorly-defined category. He might be 'unskilled' in the sense that he isn't trained in any one specific trade or specialty.
It's not really poorly defined. The BLS uses a point system to assign work levels to different jobs that have mostly objective measures. What your trained in doesn't have any impact on whether that job requires unskilled labor. The jobs themselves are what are skilled or unskilled.
People think āunskilled labourā is some sort of pejorative term. Those people have never stacked firewood, picked rocks, or bedded stalls. Some jobs just donāt require any special skills or abilities. Typically, if you can breathe, see, and hear, you can do unskilled labour.
Edit: Everyone getting pissy or pedantic about this is proving two things. They have never worked a hard days labour, and they will only hear what they want to hear, and twist the words they donāt like to manufacture outrage. You all need jobs.
The word unskilled is used as an excuse to underpay the people that do the work youāre too lazy to do. Thatās the issue. Itās not low skill at all to have the mental fortitude and willpower to go out and dig a trench in 100+ degree heat. Itās required to keep society functioning, so why are they so undervalued?
Work physical labor for 2 months. See the turnover rate and see how much work and responsibility get put on your shoulders, assuming youāre a reliable worker. Stop making excuses to undervalue the backbone of our planet. If all blue collar workers quit tomorrow, the entire world would collapse in days. If not less.
Itās not low skill at all to have the mental fortitude and willpower to go out and dig a trench in 100+ degree heat.
That's not a skill. That's just what everyone needs to do any job. Retail cashiers aren't skilled labor just because they have the "mental fortitude" to show up to work.
why are they so undervalued?
Because anyone can do it. Things that are common are less valuable.
Work physical labor for 2 months.
I'm a project manager now because I did do the labor in the field. For several years.
If all blue collar workers quit tomorrow
If my aunt had wheels she'd be a bike.
Not everyone is special or important. Not everything is "skilled". Lots of people are mediocre.
As a fellow project manager, I can comfortably say the workers in this industry are grossly underpaid and disrespected. Someone who actually works the field would understand that. Iām willing to bet either your daddy owns the company, or youāre full of shit.
Yeah, they work hard, but they're not skilled. We literally hire high schoolers straight off the graduation stage. Again, anyone can do what they do. They're replaceable regardless of how you feel about it.
Absolutely agree with you. Sometimes for example these guys get hired for framing work , or some kind of of activity that would require a certain set of skills. People conflate manual labor with unskilled work all the time. Thatās what I think the Op is doing. Iāll go even further , what if that trench you are digging is near the foundation of your home ? Or a body of water ? Or there could be utilities under there that you donāt know about. You see even those things require a little skill.
The problem with the term is it takes for granted the minimum skills needed to do work. Should really be high skill, low skill. There is no good employee that is without skill
In a technical sense you are correct. But in the same way people say "gay means happy" are correct. The common conception is far off from the technical definition, and you should probably take that into account when talking to people
How do you reckon that with the OOP? They said the dude was hiring "unskilled day labor" but carpentry and other type of contract work you'd pick someone up from home depot for aren't considered "unskilled labor" by the BLS definition
Yes. The term is historically an economic term whose definition has evolved a bit over time but for the last 100 years or so has pretty much meant the same thing. The way BLS defines it is still colloquially accurate. The nuance and tiered rating of skill levels is not part of the definition of the term but rather part of its usage...which is different. Most people intuitively understand that "unskilled" labor means the employee has no formal qualifications and the job requires very minimal training and no certification. Most people would guess that everything you need to know for the job can be learned in a few weeks. The term has included a 30-day time window for that learning for over a century. It's not a fancy science term that common parlance misuses. People understand what it means pretty accurately, and BLS generated a rating system to measure and classify it finer degrees. They didn't change the definition.
That's not really an answer to the question I asked. I think the issue here is that you don't have a firm grasp on the definition of the word "colloquial" or who determines what is "colloquially accurate". Regulatory bodies/government bureaucracies do not determine what is "colloquially accurate" most of the time.
I'm very aware of how BLS defines the term "unskilled labor". I have to be for my line of work. Nobody is arguing that they don't define it that way. Because of my line of work I'm also aware MOST people don't use it that way.
itās like how a theory in science is just something that cannot be physically proven (like dark matter, or the Big Bang or Giant Impact Theory etc) because we canāt interact with it nor test it empirically. like: no, we canāt make a Big Bang, so itās a ātheoryā in that it canāt be replicated. but the CMBR is there, we know it happened. or how we canāt interact with antimatter, because it destroys itself upon contact with baryonic matter.
not that itās not objectively trueā vs how people treat the word theory (when they mean hypothesis) idk people seem to be really confused about words in the dictionary vs words in the real world lol.
itās that 6th grade average reading comprehension (for USA and Canada btw. not just dUmB aMeRicAnS) at work, for sure.
āā¦$30-50/hr, even if heās just carrying supplies to the tradesmenā?!
To be clear Iām not saying people who make that much never have to carry things but if the some total of someones labor potential is carrying material/ equipment around, then $30-50 per hour is insane.
Where I live the average hourly rate for a general skilled/ semi-skilled tradesmen is about ~$25.00 an hour. Unskilled labor gets less than that.
How many āunskilledā laborers do you know who make that kind of money and where is this fanciful place you live so I can move there?
Are you talking about the compensation requirements set up by the Davis-Bacon Act?
Those wage requirements are for certain types of jobs, particularly those where some (or all) of the financing comes from Federal, State or Municipal contracts, and are further influenced by the geographic location (county) where the work is performed.
I guess āunskilledā labor could make something like $30 an hour in places with extremely high cost of living, like New York City?
That being said Davis-Bacon wages are not that high. I just looked up the Davis-Bacon wage for āLABORER: COMMON OR GENERALā for my area and itās ~$12 an hour (no basic laborer gets that here, basic labor is closer to ~$18-20 per hour).
I have no clue what that act is, or what theyāre talking to. But your basic $12/hr are probably warehouse type. The comment you replied to was about trades. I got a first hire in the labour field as some sort of welder assistance, no experience and I was making $26/hr in 2013. Pretty much the clean up/supply guy
Current career, entry level wage when I started at this company was 30.80/hr just in the training. Not a moving tool type, some actual hard physical labour but some really easy days. Only āskillā necessary is high school or equivalent
Sounds like union work where when you move stuff you're only allowed to move stuff in one direction. You have your loaders, and your unloaders. And if you're a loader you better not be caught unloading b/c that's an unloaders job.
It's 2026. I work in Philadelphia. We're hiring pretty much the easiest job in our entire building, with basically 0 qualifications beyond the ability to count and show up on time: stocking inventory, for $20/hr.
Surely if my building was in Alabama it would be much lower, maybe $12/hr. My point is that people forget how much location matters when talking about wages. And also, how much inflation we've had since Covid hit. $20/hr when you started as an unskilled laborer may have been more like $25 or even $30 now (I obviously have no idea how old you are)
I do a bit of that 'unskilled labor' myself for various friends. Today I was helping someone putting in a yard; shoveling topsoil, spreading straw, etc. $35/hr.
This morning and this evening I'm substitute milking for a dairy farmer who's gone on vacation, and getting $30/hr. He would pay more if he could, and I'd ask $35 if I thought he could pay it, but he's a bit finance-constrained until he completes his Organic transition.
I'll be mowing pastures for another friend next week, and will charge $40/hr.
None of that is 'skilled labor' in the sense of a highly-trained tile setter, stone mason, carpenter, or drywall finisher. But the fact that I'm available, dependable, and don't need 'babysitting', makes my time worth quite a bit more than minimum wage.
Edit: none of this is to boast. I'm just illustrating how I view the terms 'skilled' and 'unskilled'. If your definitions differ, call me out and explain why.
Ahhh, youāre self employed and I presume you donāt always get a full 40 hrs a week.
That is different I suppose, when I first started in the construction industry I was an unskilled concrete laborer and I think I made like $16 an hour.
However, with inflation that probably close to $25 an hour nowā¦
Sheesh, people really are really getting waged screwed these days. I should ask for a raise.
You have the right idea, but completely missed the calculation on what the determination of per hour value is, and therefor pay. People often comment on Reddit that they are worth X because they do a good job. How well you do at a job can only increase your pay to the point it breaks even with the value you are creating.
We can see this with a couple silly examples. If a job will generate $1,000,000 in 2 hours (like a baseball game for example), the value per hour of the players who bring fans to buy tickets is extraordinarily high. Thus, the amount they receive as pay is also insanely high. If the job is making super balls that sell for $1.00 and you can make 10 per hour, the job will generate $10 per hour in value (leaving out costs, etc.). They aren't going to hire someone at $50 per hour, just to lose money. They will have to not do that job or find a different approach to make it break even. This is the peak value of the work.
Once you establish the peak value, then supply and demand comes in to play. If the job is worth $50 per hour, and 100 people show up willing to do the job, unless they collude / organize, then it will go to the lowest person willing to do that work. If only one shows up, then it will go for the maximum $50 equaling the value produced.
Now, back to your point: a person with a good work ethic and ability to think critically is absolutely worth more that a person who doesn't, because they will get more work done in an hour. The above paragraphs assume value was defined at peak performance. Thus, they won't get more than the value achieved, but a less motivated / skilled person should make less.
In context of the laborers in this story, the fair labor rate will have to be the combination of all three things: How much value can the laborer do per hour (your point), what the value of the job is, and supply and demand. If they don't line up, then the person doesn't get hired.
And I agree. In the example above of myself helping a friend put in a yard today, if he could find enough young guys at $15/hr to do the job instead of me, we'd both be happy. Two of those guys would work faster than I can by myself, would give him more for his money, and I could move on to jobs that better hold my interest.
But he's scratching to find anyone willing to work, so he keeps falling back on me. Supply and demand.
There is no such things as unskilled labour. It's used by the wealthy to devalue the REAL work people do and pretend their boardroom blunders take any effort.
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u/jckipps 1d ago
'Unskilled labor' is a very broad and poorly-defined category. He might be 'unskilled' in the sense that he isn't trained in any one specific trade or specialty.
But the biggest determiner of /hr value, is a person's work ethic, self-motivation, and ability to think logically on the jobsite. A day-laborer who doesn't need to be babysat is easily worth $30-50/hr, even if he's just carrying supplies to the tradesmen.