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 Kilkrazy wrote:
Like what?

Here in Australia, particularly in Western Australia, you can earn an excellent wage, as in near to or in excess of six figures, as a storeman or kitchen hand out in the mines.

The trick is that they fly you out there, you spend four weeks of your life in oppressive heat away from your friends and family, and then you fly back for a week of leave before flying out again.

A lot of folk talk about how good it would to command that kind of wage, but not that many of them do it because they don't want to be away from their families for that length of time.


But that's a fairly example, a case of a particularly profitable industry paying a very high price for a particularly gak job. In the main those kinds of jobs, where an unskilled or semi-skilled guy can make up for that by taking on a job that pays a premium because it's particularly hard work or has oppressive conditions, have been steadily disappearing over the last 40 to 50 years. That's kind of what 'the decline of manufacturing' means.

Just about any job that involves mining, fishing, or logging out in the middle of nowhere pays really good money. It has to to get people to do it.

Of course the work also tends to be seasonal. but you can make a years salary in 3 months.

I salute anybody that does work like that. Its tough.

 AustonT wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Like what?

Garbage men.
Trim Carpenters, Framers, Security, Hooking.

Trim carpentry and framing are semi-skilled professions.

A security guard earns somewhere between $8 and $12 an hour, from the figures I just checked on-line.

Garbage men I'll grant you, in exchange for gak working hours and a messy, tiring job you pick up about $20 an hour.

 sebster wrote:

 AustonT wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Like what?

Garbage men.
Trim Carpenters, Framers, Security, Hooking.

Trim carpentry and framing are semi-skilled professions.

A security guard earns somewhere between $8 and $12 an hour, from the figures I just checked on-line.

Garbage men I'll grant you, in exchange for gak working hours and a messy, tiring job you pick up about $20 an hour.

Thats probably because of a union.

 sebster wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Like what?

Here in Australia, particularly in Western Australia, you can earn an excellent wage, as in near to or in excess of six figures, as a storeman or kitchen hand out in the mines.

The trick is that they fly you out there, you spend four weeks of your life in oppressive heat away from your friends and family, and then you fly back for a week of leave before flying out again.

A lot of folk talk about how good it would to command that kind of wage, but not that many of them do it because they don't want to be away from their families for that length of time.


But that's a fairly example, a case of a particularly profitable industry paying a very high price for a particularly gak job. In the main those kinds of jobs, where an unskilled or semi-skilled guy can make up for that by taking on a job that pays a premium because it's particularly hard work or has oppressive conditions, have been steadily disappearing over the last 40 to 50 years. That's kind of what 'the decline of manufacturing' means.

Working on oil slopes in Alaska is just as lucrative.

You even live like a rock start there as the company provides many things for you... the only bad thing, is being away from family.

 Ahtman wrote:
It isn't laziness, it is the stigma of it being below them. All sorts of Americans do manual labor and physically intense jobs, such as construction and serving in the military.

There's probably a combination of laziness and the stigma. Between the two you end up with a job that demands a premium over what the necessary level of skill would normally command in the market. Right now that premium is too much when there's the option to bring in migrant labour (legally or illegally).

Change that, and you'd find farmers having to pay that premium to local workers. The issue is whether you want to be paying that premium for your produce.



Oh and welcome back, haven't seen you around lately


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
Then why were the vegetables left to rot in the field, instead of raising wages to pick them?

Wages are inherently sticky, and take time to adjust to market conditions.

The price of tomatoes also won't have shot up to justify the new, necessary price of labour. Might as well leave the tomatoes to rot, than pay $25 an hour for a mediocre picker to come in, when you'd end up selling them for less than the picker cost you. Long term, of course, the price of tomatoes would increase to account for that price of labour (if similar restrictions on migrant labour were brought in in every state), and it'd become viable to pay that high price of labour.

The question, of course, being if you really want to be paying that much for your tomatoes, or if it would be better to have migrant worked programs doing more for less.

And sometimes it is more benificial to let your crop die on the vine then harvest it. You may be losing money on harvesting, packaging, and shipping so that you will lose less money if you simply do nothing.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Just about any job that involves mining, fishing, or logging out in the middle of nowhere pays really good money. It has to to get people to do it.

Of course the work also tends to be seasonal. but you can make a years salary in 3 months.

I salute anybody that does work like that. Its tough.

Yeah, absolutely. They get paid that much because the job sucks enough that that's what has to be paid to get someone to do it, and good luck to them for doing a tough job and earning what it offers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Thats probably because of a union.

Maybe in some places it is. But I think its more likely to figure that they pay is what it is because the job sucks pretty bad. Running around behind a diesel truck, throwing in rubbish in the wee hours of the morning is the kind of thing that demands a premium.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
Working on oil slopes in Alaska is just as lucrative.

You even live like a rock start there as the company provides many things for you... the only bad thing, is being away from family.

Being away from family, and the weather sucks

I spent some time contracting as an accountant to country local governments that were merging, setting up the financial systems for the combined entity. I only took jobs a few hours from home so I could drive back every weekend, and got paid really nicely, and I still gave it up after about 8 months. Spending every night on your own watching the two TV stations available just did my head in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
And sometimes it is more benificial to let your crop die on the vine then harvest it. You may be losing money on harvesting, packaging, and shipping so that you will lose less money if you simply do nothing.

Yeah, I said that.

 sebster wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Like what?

Here in Australia, particularly in Western Australia, you can earn an excellent wage, as in near to or in excess of six figures, as a storeman or kitchen hand out in the mines.

The trick is that they fly you out there, you spend four weeks of your life in oppressive heat away from your friends and family, and then you fly back for a week of leave before flying out again.

A lot of folk talk about how good it would to command that kind of wage, but not that many of them do it because they don't want to be away from their families for that length of time.

Its kind of like working the oil fields. My father did it in his youth, and is considering it again while pushing 60. Its not crazy hard work, it just the middle of nowhere with no life work.