Ask Lemmy

I agree with your passion, but I think you're digging too deep into the semantics. Sure, after time, we can expect someone to become more skilled at an "unskilled" position, but that's bending the definition of the term.

This man needs an appendectomy.

This canyon needs a 200m bridge that will be able to hold 4 lanes of traffic.

This floor needs mopped.

98% of people would have no idea where to even start on the first two jobs. THAT is the difference between skilled and unskilled.

"unskilled" directly refers to the amount of training a job requires to do it. Anyone can wash dishes or do a newspaper round without any training. It's not a skill to wash a plate properly.

Anyone can do an unskilled job and be efficient at it in a short space of time.

But does it require skill to do the job or does skill just make a person better at the job?

A plumber can't be a plumber without years of training and experience. There is no apprentice dishwasher or master dishwasher, just about anyone with two hands and willing to stand in one place for hours can do the job. I washed dishes at a fast food deli for three months for a summer job in highschool. It's thankless hard work but it was mindless work and required no skill, I washed dishes zoned out and on autopilot most of the time. I'm sure there are skilled dishwashers that can was them the fastest or cleanest, but washing dishes doesn't require skill, it requires work ethic, it requires completing the task of washing the dishes. There's no 100 other tasks required to do or learn before becoming a dishwasher.

If any functioning human can walk in and do the job then it's not "skilled" labor. Having a good work ethic doesn't equal skilled labor.

"Skilled" labor is someone that spent years honing their craft and making a complicated "job" look like a simple effortless task because they spent years learning how to do it and perfecting it, hours of prep and planning. That's is "skilled" labor.

That's EXACTLY what it means - anyone can do it.