23 thoughts on “Jobs “Americans Won’t Do””

  1. Yes, assuming that the local labor laws would allow someone to hire them. A really *big* assumption…

  2. I had a friend who worked grounds keeping. He really enjoyed it. Turns out he had to quit because the wages were too low. Who would’ve thought?

    1. “I had a friend who worked grounds keeping. He really enjoyed it. Turns out he had to quit because the wages were too low. Who would’ve thought?”

      The idea that there were not Americans willing to do such and such work was always a myth. The reality is that perhaps there were not enough Americans willing to do such work at what an employer was inclined to pay (minimum wage or much less) under the stoop labor type working conditions in the hot blazing sun. Illegals were. And as for the educated high skill set jobs; check out H-1B1 visa; an excuse to import highly skilled labor based on the same bogus “shortage”; people you can work the shit out of for much less than a comparably skilled American would expect/demand.

      1. Yes. The H1B may have made sense in the 90s, but it’s a huge scam today. It’s probably also one reason why Big Tech is increasingly left-wing, because they import masses of H1B workers from socialist nations.

        The sooner it’s scrapped, the better. Trump should tell them to stop censoring the right, or no more visas.

      2. From the news I learn that some companies are abusing H-1B visas by creating sweat shops of low-paid foreign workers, but I believe there is a legitimate use for these visas, as well. I work for an engineering software company. Whenever we advertise an open position probably about 75% of the applicants are immigrants, most without a green card. The fact is that most of the new STEM degrees our universities are awarding are going to foreign students, and I think we are foolish to force bright young people to go back to their home country when they want to stay here. People are a resource, and that is especially true of smart, hardworking technology workers.

        My company does not pay immigrants any differently than permanent residents. These positions are openly competed and we do not seek out non-resident applicants. Just the opposite, in fact. It is costly, and these days fraught with uncertainty, to hire and sponsor a non-resident. But if the most qualified candidate is from India or China what are we supposed to do?

        1. People are a resource, and that is especially true of smart, hardworking technology workers.

          Yes they are. Is it right that we claim that resource from the country they are from? Should not that country have a right to claim that resource as their own? If poor countries continue to loose their “smart, hardworking” people to the US, what is the end game? How do poor countries ever become not-poor if they continue to see their valuable resources leave? Through continuing endless subsidies from the US? Is that the end game?

          Poor countries, continue to send your best and brightest to us, we’ll continue sending dollars to you, and will continue to stipulate how you spend it, so that you may continue to send your most valuable resources to us.

          I don’t think it takes a particularly high IQ to see issues with this approach.

          1. Bingo. I grew up in the UK, and it’s been absolutely wrecked by the Brain Drain over the last fifty years. High-IQ kids have been exported en masse, and low-IQ immigrants brought in to replace them.

            If not for that, I might still be living there myself.

            So the H1B is not just depriving Americans of jobs, it’s wrecking the countries the immigrants come from, by depriving them of the high-IQ kids they need to build a viable economy.

      3. Indeed. The problem isn’t that there aren’t workers, it’s that wages are too low.

        Israel has had a similar problem – which they solved in many respects by automation. Yes, it will cost more up front, but offers many benefits long term.

      4. I think if more people witnessed what tech companies are doing with H1B visa employees; they would, to those that understand the term, recognize it as modern day slavery. It’s not the same slavery of centuries past; but it is about forcing people to work, particularly harder and for less pay, lest you take away their rights. And that’s not an argument for open immigration, but rather regular immigration, in which full citizenship is given for those who want to live and work here.

        1. This is absolutely not true of the company where I work, and of many other similar companies. You are generalizing from a few bad examples.

  3. I wonder how well they accounted for the underground economy. For instance, small lawn-mowing businesses that operate on a cash basis. In Houston, a generation ago most of the guys mowing lawns for a living were black — and almost certainly native-born citizens. Now they’re almost all Hispanic. Although I can only speculate on the percentage of illegal aliens I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a lot higher than 15%. There’s a similar story to tell about maids and housekeepers.

  4. I think the argument was about seasonal jobs- picking crops. But there are other seasonal jobs- such as at Christmas time.
    I would guess Christmas time is the biggest seasonal job- and it’s somehow managed without importing workers.
    And I would say that generally all jobs of seasonal to some extent- ie, roofers don’t work as much when it’s raining- though emergency repair of roofs when it’s raining is different.

  5. I have always believed that the Job Americans Won’t Do mantra always meant jobs we can’t get Americans to do under the table. Ask any latino who will be honest with you and you will find legal or not, they are hard working people that will gladly pick up extra cash as a side job and get paid in cash. They are in many cases sending the majority of what they are making home. It has always been the employers that have benefitted from this two teir system. A large number of them are the good people of California with really nice properties. If democrats really want to see people making a living wage then stop driving down wages with this system that resembles endentured servitude.

  6. Years ago in Alaska I told a group of local Republicans that the reason businesses from the Lower 48 spent so much money importing workers from the Lower 48 was because they figured even after paying for transportation and lodging it was still cheaper in the long run than dealing with the local labor unions. This way they were bringing in workers they already knew and had confidence in.

    One of the attendees — a union worker but also (until that moment) a friend of mine — freaked out and denounced me publicly as if I’d insulted him personally.

  7. As an Australian I noticed when I was in France that there were many jobs that the French people would not do that Australian would do like road repairs. I suspect that Americans being similar to Australian would also do these jobs.

  8. It’s been my experience that you can’t find willing workers in many fields regardless of wage.

      1. There is always someone willing to take your money. Not necessarily someone that will give value for it. You can pay $50.00 an hour for someone to cut your grass if you like. You still won’t get the ‘unemployed’, more likely a cook or roofer that changes jobs.

        There is a massive shortage of semi skilled labor in this country. At the same time there are masses of unskilled that are doing nothing to improve their status. Truck drivers, mechanics, construction workers, and many others are graying out and not being replaced by younger citizens. The stat game in the article is very misleading in the real world.

        This is not just a problem in the US. At the last concrete trade show I went to, Europeans and Asians from several countries had similar complaints. There are consequences to supporting sloth and denigrating hard work. College for all!!! is a poison both to the nation and to the unqualified individuals.. Some people that can live without working, or lose government ‘benefits’ for working better jobs never get on the ladder up. Many of the middle rungs are empty.

  9. H1B never made sense. It was just a way to drive IT wages down (among others). And it was never about “education” either. Anyone with something vaguely like a brain can develope marketable skills just by buying a computer a few textbooks. I went from being a marine machinery mechanic to being an employable programmer in about 2 weeks. But in the 15 years from 1997 to 2012 (when I retired) pay rates declined precipitously, as management jobs went to the HR princess cadre and the IT jobs themselves went to imported labor that was, at best, semi-skilled. I started typing out a brief description of demographic changes in the IT workplace over that time, but, heck, everyone a;ready knows I and all my kind are racist, misogynistic bigots.

  10. I have been unable to comment on this blog for quite some time, but then one I sent on my cell phone went through. So I’m trying on the computer.

    I run a small construction business and find that very few citizens will put forth the effort to learn to do the hard jobs right. I’ve gone through a couple of dozen in the last year and kept none of them. Without the guys I have from Mexico I would be a one man shop. They are not cheap making 50-100% more than the local average.

    What do you do with citizens that won’t do the hard work in the sun, and are not qualified for anything else?

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