Jobs Then And Now?

Zardnaar

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Nov 16, 2003
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19,920
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Dunedin, New Zealand
Online there's been alot of angst about boomers and millenials about how the boomers got everything.

I'm generation X sorta forgotten about.
Anyway an article about a union complaining about unskilled labour being shipped in getting paid more.


And not being trained.

These are jobs that kiwis used to do. They're claiming they're short staffed. I grew up in a town where the main employer was a freezing works. Freezing works is a meat processing plant/abbatoir.

Generally you worked 6-8 months of the year and got a full year's wages and then some. In the off season you qualified for welfare so you weren't exactly thrown on the scrap heap. Prices are in NZD not sure what the exact exchange rate back then but it was bad (1 nzd bottomed out 39 US cents 2001 iirc).

My friend on 2000 got one of the last good contracts. He was getting paid similar to those modern workers in ,$25 an hour. He started on around 19 ended up on $25 with double time on Saturday and triple time Sunday.

His board was $50 a week at parents.

In 2000 I got 8.50 at McDonalds during winter n Sumner I did contract picking usually making around $1000 a week on a good week around half on a bad week ($25 a bin) Another mate bounced between NZ and USA operating harvesting machinery/driving tractors in summer.

My private board was $90 a week. Rent in a house per room was around $40-70 generally (I paid $60 in 1999). Basically went hard in summer, did whatever in winter (I played D&D mate damaged his liver drinking).

Anyway there was usually a waiting list to get into the freezing works. They paid really well. 1-2 seasons deposit on house kinda well one guy I knew went ultra frugal and paid cash for a house buying it outright ($40k). Decent houses could be had in 60-70k range cheapest I saw was $14 in 1998- house next door.

Long ramble but the numbers sort of give you an idea. In the article they show what people are getting now.

22+ years ago I was getting $25 a bin of apples picked during Covid it was $35.

They're claming staff shortages but what's happened was a massive influx of people (25% pop growth 2002-2019), revised visa laws 2005 iirc and a downward spiral in real wages combined with massive growth in property prices. What happened in the USA with property recently was a crisis here in 2017 and arguably started in 2003.

Even the unions are salty.

Minimum wage has also crept up to the point that starting teachers and these freezing workers who used to get middle class incomes are getting a few dollars more than minimum wage (47k a year 40 hour week vs 55k starting teacher XYZ hours per week).

Other context. Employment Contract law was changed 1991 but the last of the good contracts trickled out by around 2010 for blue collar workers. Right wing government elected 2008, first thing they did tax cut and zero hour contracts and 90 day trial periods (since repealed).

Worker exploitation has gotten a lot worse Anyway. Kinda funny sometimes listening to boomers complain about expenses or talking to an employer. "I xan do tgat" but at about double what they're willing to pay lol
 
My theory is that such plants tend to hire local, don't really have the resources to advertise their jobs far and wide, and local youngsters growing up would rather move out and move on than work in the local factory/production center. Especially when college degrees are so incentivized (rightly or wrongly). This then becomes a headache for employers who have few alternatives but push for unskilled workers to come in to keep prices down. Presumably they are the ones influencing the loosening of immigration quotas to accomplish this. How to fix this? No easy answer I know of. I just don't think factory-type work is looked at very fondly anymore. I think there's a certain stigma associated with it. Whether it is because of unskilled labor or something else, I don't know.
 
My theory is that such plants tend to hire local, don't really have the resources to advertise their jobs far and wide, and local youngsters growing up would rather move out and move on than work in the local factory/production center. Especially when college degrees are so incentivized (rightly or wrongly). This then becomes a headache for employers who have few alternatives but push for unskilled workers to come in to keep prices down. Presumably they are the ones influencing the loosening of immigration quotas to accomplish this. How to fix this? No easy answer I know of. I just don't think factory-type work is looked at very fondly anymore. I think there's a certain stigma associated with it. Whether it is because of unskilled labor or something else, I don't know.

We did it due to lack of better ptions and it paid better than most degrees were worth.

Still kind of does outside of the best degrees. I didn't do the freezing works but found the work remarkably stress free and non toxic compared with other jobs.
 
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