Are you biased against "dirty jobs"?

Flickr user Terry Ross

(MoneyWatch) COMMENTARY If your child came to you and said, "I have no interest in college. I'd like to be a pig farmer," would your first reaction be, "You need to go to college. You can get a degree in Animal Husbandry or Agricultural Science and then you can be a veterinarian," or would you say, "Why don't you see if you can get a summer job working on a farm and see if that's truly what you want?"

The reason I ask is that I just read a letter from Mike Rowe, of "Dirty Jobs" fame. He wrote it to Mitt Romney, but he brings up a point that is relevant to all of U.S. society. In response to questions about why there is a skilled labor gap, Mr. Rowe writes:

I shared my theory that most of these "problems" were in fact symptoms of something more fundamental - a change in the way Americans viewed hard work and skilled labor. That's the essence of what I've heard from the hundreds of men and women I've worked with on Dirty Jobs. Pig farmers, electricians, plumbers, bridge painters, jam makers, blacksmiths, brewers, coal miners, carpenters, crab fisherman, oil drillers...they all tell me the same thing over and over, again and again - our country has become emotionally disconnected from an essential part of our workforce. We are no longer impressed with cheap electricity, paved roads, and indoor plumbing. We take our infrastructure for granted, and the people who build it.

Are we emotionally disconnected from an essential portion of our workforce? I had an experience a few months ago that I didn't think much of then, but now I find fascinating. I'm an American but I'm currently living in Switzerland. My German is passable, but I'm far more comfortable speaking English. So, when I needed my living room painted, I sought out a painter that advertised himself as speaking fluent English.

He had recently moved from America to Switzerland to accompany his wife on an expat assignment. During the course our interaction he told me multiple times that in America he had been a construction executive and had managed teams of workers and entire building projects. The only reason he was painting was that he needed to learn German before he could work managing construction teams in Switzerland.

Whether he was ashamed of his current occupation or not, I don't know. But it was clear that he felt it was important that I know that this was a temporary stop. While he could paint, he most certainly was not a career painter. He was better than that.

Now the reality is, he did a fine job painting my living room, but shouldn't his focus have been on the skill he was trying to sell? Why did he feel it necessary to focus on what wasn't important to me (construction management) instead of focusing on what was important to me (a painted living room)?

I think it has something to do with how he perceived skilled labor -- something you do if you can't get a professional job. This, of course, is utterly ridiculous. Why do we think it's admirable to be able to do things that require sitting on our behinds in front of computer screens, but a failure if we build a road?

Mike Rowe continues:

Today, we can see the consequences of this disconnect in any number of areas, but none is more obvious than the growing skills gap. Even as unemployment remains sky high, a whole category of vital occupations has fallen out of favor, and companies struggle to find workers with the necessary skills. The causes seem clear. We have embraced a ridiculously narrow view of education. Any kind of training or study that does not come with a four-year degree is now deemed "alternative." Many viable careers once aspired to are now seen as "vocational consolation prizes," and many of the jobs this current administration has tried to "create" over the last four years are the same jobs that parents and teachers actively discourage kids from pursuing. (I always thought there something ill-fated about the promise of three million "shovel ready jobs" made to a society that no longer encourages people to pick up a shovel.)

I agree. We have adopted a "ridiculously narrow view of education." We send (or attempt) to send our children to universities and simultaneously praise them for obtaining degrees in areas that don't prepare them for a career, complain about them living in our basements and wonder why we cannot find a good plumber.

We need to acknowledge that all honest work is good work. One doesn't become more virtuous when your job requires showering before work rather than after coming home.

For further reading:
Why my child will be your child's boss
Stand up for yourself without getting fired
Want to increase jobs? Eliminate these laws

Photo courtesy Flickr user Terry Ross.

[hypnotoad72]

Many are deemed "overqualified", so they can't get the jobs. Because they have college degrees, especially in fields where H1Bs are being given preferential treatment. College grads do real work as well...

Oh, and given the flip side:

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/case/hiring-illegal-immigrants.html

Wages are being artificially lowered, with our middle class being scapegoated...

[jasonsprenger]

It's true - skills gaps are emerging throughout the American economy, and businesses aren't able to find the workers they need to operate well. It's a growing problem, and we all have a hand in solving it.

The Industry Workforce Needs Council was recently formed to spotlight these emerging gaps and advocate for career and technical education (CTE) as a means of bridging them. The CTE umbrella has expanded significantly in recent years - it's not just about shop class and home economics anymore. And the careers it can help train students for are exactly the ones where gaps are being found - trades, IT and beyond. Along the way, CTE has proven to boost student achievement and long-term success.

For more information on the IWNC or to get involved, visit www.iwnc.org.

Jason Sprenger, for the IWNC

[hypnotoad72]

So why aren't businesses, especially ones that take any tax cut, tax break, taxpayer-funded handout, or any other entitlement doing a little work of their own by training people? Especially students who want to learn and even go back to college?

It takes both sides. Plenty of students are, aka the "demand" that's studying their butts off right now...

Or is the lack of talent in the form of wages not being consummate with the cost of college? I know more than one grad who played the "unpaid internship" gig... the company loved the work but would not pay. Yo, workers cannot work for free... what next, workers pay their employers to work there? BYOD is another step in that direction...

Supply-side economics is a FAIL. GHWB saw that in 1981, so why didn't others... then or especially now, 31 years later? Maybe there is a skills gap - between neurons...

[DLK-MI]

As society continues to cut costs by cutting the pay and benefits of people doing "real work," it's no wonder these are jobs of last resort. According to the Simply Hired website, the average sanitation worker makes $19,000/year.

[hypnotoad72]

Exactly.

We don't value labor and then spew every insult against workers... Well, not "we" literally - most of us value work, since we actually do it.

[jeannutson]

Interesting and thoughtful post,jobs classified as dirty jobs are certainly very essential and should not be discriminated against only the fast changing phase of technology is replacing and changing the mode and method of doing most of those jobs.

[cmstevens06]

People underestimate not only the value, but the absolute necessity of blue collar jobs. Garbage men and sewage plant workers are an essential component of our health care system. Yes, health care. Many of the diseases we are lucky enough not to contract are spread by vermin and through contaminated drinking water.

Electricians? Electricity allows us to refrigerate and store food, medicines, plasma, and blood. It keeps life saving machines online.

The list goes on. These jobs are crucial to our society. Without them, we'd be sunk.

Oh. Lest I forget, without pig farmers, there's be no bacon. My boyfriend assures me that society as we know it would collapse without bacon.

[hypnotoad72]

And yet the value of their labor is kept (artificially) low.

Same with farmers...

[KimStiens]

Oh, so much agreement here! It's so odd to me that the ********* jobs are paid the worst. There should be a premium for doing the dirty jobs, right? We'd have a lot more sanitation workers if they made $30K a year instead of $19K. Though plumbers make good money, as do electricians (especially since they don't have to endure the 4 year liberal arts education).

[halvsie]

I work for a S&P 500 corporation as a mechanic and I can tell you quite honestly the new managers with no maintenance experience think we are all a bunch of lazy goof-offs.
It used to be a mechanic would work his way up the management ladder if he had the skills, nowadays our company has laid them off and brought in accountants and loss prevention managers to tell us its all about numbers and working harder yet with less accidents.
I have to laugh inside when I hear our director of operations telling us how we need to meet their numbers with less people and no training whatsoever, yet the DO has only 6 years with the company fresh out of college.

[dlnewco50]

Why is college tuition going sky high? Demand. Unfortunately the demand is a bit -- misplaced. I recently met a college grad bemoaning the fact that he couldn't get a job with his masters in Middle English Literature.
I don't have a four year degree but my supervisor thinks that I am his best process ENGINEER. How did I get here? A career in the military, lots of hands on experience and admittedly taking some college courses along the way.
I suspect that the value of a degree is inflated. Drive, attitude and critical thinking may trump a degree.

[hypnotoad72]

Then why did Obama say we need more college grads in 2007 (techcrunch), with Romney saying or or less the same thing (on his own website, 2012)?

It seems our current and potential political figures deem it necessary...

[[e-mail]]

I'm with Mike all the way and have had that attitude way before it was popular. I don't know how many times I've run into an acquaintance or family member and the response to "What are you doing with your life?" is something along the lines of "Well, I'm just a plumber/painter/janitor/construction worker/berry picker/something manual and demeaning in today's society." My response? Are you happy doing what you're doing? If so, I really envy you. Are you paying your bills and supporting your family? Seems like you've got it more together than these dudes with the MBA's who don't have the common sense of a.....well, never mind!

I FINALLY earned my college degree this past year. I'm proud of myself because I'm kind of old and put off going to college for 30 years. However, did it help me get my job? (white collar, well paying) No - I earned my job all by my lonesome, with my wits and my willingness to learn and work. Did I get a huge raise or promotion because I'm finally educated? No - part of that's because of the current economy and part of that's because it makes no sense. Did I learn anything at school? Yes...... Did I learn more from experience than from college? YES!!! (was that emphatic enough?)

I have to say that our misguided president and his cronies need to take a look around. A college education is not a necessity nor is it for everyone. In fact, looking at some of the folks running our country and our companies, I think we have too many over-educated people who need to try pushing a broom or digging a trench so they can re-prioritize and see the "big" picture.

[lelnet]

I'd rather my kid become a plumber or an electrician or something like that than go to college, major in a fluff subject, and spend the next decade as an office temp.

I mean, I have a pretty kick-butt white collar career. And if you measure my historical salary on an hourly basis, I wasn't able to get away with charging what my plumber charges until I'd been in the field for 20 years, and frankly I'm unlikely to ever make more, on an inflation-adjusted basis, than I do today, unless I go out and start my own company.

It so happens that I _enjoy_ what I do, and I'm _good_ at it. But if either of those criteria didn't apply, then I'd have to seriously envy the plumber.

[missam1978]

Agreed. If I had it all to do over, I'd skip college and go through an apprenticeship program. Fifth year apprentices - in the right profession - make more than I do with a Master's. (And they don't take their work home).

[sjc_1]

Bush Sr. supposedly said "college is not for everyone, someone has to do the work". Whether he said that or not most people do not want to do blue collar work. It is low pay, back breaking and dead end.

That is just honest, most people will say it is good honest work. The real test is do you want your kid doing it? We see people at the stores, but no one wants to see there kid working there after graduation.

[hypnotoad72]

The value OF work is another issue as well, but ask those on Wall Street to do good honest work (especially after they devalued it, with no option left off the table) and see what happens... they prefer their ponzi scheme casino any day of the week...