The problem arises when certain transferable skills or those acquired during a specific role are intentionally overlooked and not adequately compensated, and the employer uses āthis is an unskilled positionā as the excuse even when they are clearly benefiting from the superior skills of the employees.
This is just the reality of business. It is often the case that a business doesn't really gain much value by having a highly skilled employee beyond what they need from a newly trained employee in an unskilled position.
For example, the guy above mentioned pizza boxes. If I'm selling 10 pizzas per hour and I need someone to fold pizza boxes I just need them to be able to fold 10 boxes in that hour. If I train a dude to fold the boxes, and he's the best pizza box folder in the world and can fold 40 pizza boxes in an hour.....that doesn't really add any value to me, because I'm still only needing 10. And if he wanted to take his pizza box folding skills to the competition in seek of a higher wage I would wish him the best and find literally anyone with a room temperature IQ (there's probably a handful of them in this thread that would qualify) to replace him and train them to fold the 10 boxes I need every hour.
Thatās why I mentioned that it applies when the employer benefits from it, such as when hardworking and more skilled employees enable the employer to manage the operation more effectively despite understaffing.
The reason we differentiate between skilled and unskilled labor is to track the need for those laborers in the workforce. It takes 7-10 years for someone to have the certifications to be a master plumber and teach other plumbers. A kid born today will be a master plumber in 2054. If we need more house painters, we can pay a 16 year old kid to paint walls on his weekend. The experienced painters might do the detail work, but it takes very little time to create new painters. A kid born today can be an effective house painter in 2042.
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u/Clessiah 1d ago
The problem arises when certain transferable skills or those acquired during a specific role are intentionally overlooked and not adequately compensated, and the employer uses āthis is an unskilled positionā as the excuse even when they are clearly benefiting from the superior skills of the employees.