Wow, so this is Skilled Horticultural Labor requiring specific backgrounds?
Could you point me to the Horticultural Institute in the Oaxacan Highlands where most of these Exquisitely Skilled Horticulturalists come from?! Maybe we could send some of our people there to be steeped in this mysterious knowledge.
Americans do not want to sweat, for the most part.
From observation and discussion, the skills needed are a work ethic that involves getting up at dawn, following the day’s rota of production necessities, doing each chore efficiently and as well as humanly possible, being able to operate heavy machinery, being willing to care for livestock as needed, being able to function within a team, being able to take appropriate initiative, exhibiting personal responsibility, doing a hard day’s labor until sundown and continuing this for the entire length of the growing and harvesting season. Then going home for three and half months, renewing the required visas with the attendant paperwork and background checks, returning in the spring to do it all over again, reliably.
I have employed American workers. Over about a ten year period within a forty-year career, I can point to two of these who met the above criteria. Both are successful today. The rest were a series of net losses. I found firing people to be traumatic. In the end, it was easier to scale back and do everything myself.
I wish there was some way of educating people to the value and rewards of essential work. I believe it is inherently cultural and for the past twenty years or so, our native culture has failed in this sort of education.
It isn’t just manual workers who lack these traits. I have been told by financial sector employers that they would be thrilled to find people who could manage to even change the toner cartridge when necessary without being specifically told to do so.
It’s not mystical and it’s not rocket science. IMO, it begins with basic self-respect and an appreciation that he who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat. It is the recognition that the means of production begins with two hands, two feet and a brain. I have called it bootstrap capitalism. It is what once made this country great. Today’s liberals hate the very concept and have excoriated me for supporting it.
I know you thought you were being wittily sarcastic, but I decided there was actually an element of truth in your screed and therefore answered it seriously.