Most “unskilled labor” is heavily skill dependant. You wouldn’t want a chef, builder or plumber who didn’t know what they were doing. And for production: machinists, mechanics and foremen make or break profit with their skills.
So what’s a better name for these jobs?
low-barrier labor
low-investment labor
fungible labor
Low-barrier => accessible labor?
Fungible labor is new to me, but wouldn’t that imply an interchangeability that doesn’t quite reflect skill, and even moreso institutional such?
Sort of, yes. There’s definitely a difference between how an experienced hotel cleaner makes beds and how I make beds, but I can start cleaning hotelrooms tomorrow, without needing other qualifications. And you could also start tomorrow. And so could basically every other able-bodied adult, and we’d all do roughly the same job (though not as well as the person who’s done it for 10 years).
But neither of us can start tomorrow as a plumber, because it requires pre-existing training. That’s not an unskilled job.
You can start as a plumber tomorrow, but you would get mired in legal problems as soon as you put the title with your name:P
I thought of a better one: low-competition positions