L L wrote:
curious cat wrote:
Who did those jobs, say, thirty-forty-fifty-plus years ago?
Times change.
The people that did those jobs in the past never wanted their children to grow up and do them. They wanted better for them. And they have done better.
So that left an unfilled demand for those jobs. Immigrants stepped up to do them.
And I guess many who came in illegally and would accept cash.
And this illegal immigration has been going down for years, by the way.
This country has created a demand for cheap labor and illegal drugs that people coming through the southern border are fulfilling.
It's our own fault.
This might derail the thread a bit, but those jobs have changed even more than you are describing. Consider the job of "delivery driver". UPS, etc. used to offer full-time positions with benefits, some sort of pension/401(k), and so on. Deliveries were made in company vehicles. The delivery man was a respectable, if not glamorous, position within the company. Then companies started contracting out the delivery jobs to subcontractors which meant they didn't have to provide benefits. Maybe the subcontractor would provide some benefits, maybe not. Now Amazon pays people essentially for each delivery that they make in their own car. There are no benefits and the drivers are not even close to being actual Amazon employees. In essence, Amazon has eliminated the position of "delivery driver" from their company.
If Amazon was interested in actually employing drivers, maybe people would be willing to make that job into a career. Instead, jobs like fast food worker, delivery driver, and hotel maid are treated as undesirable. While I encourage people to always seek out 'better' jobs, it shouldn't be done by stigmatizing other jobs. This is something that is currently done by both companies and individuals.