How Jobs Become ‘Jobs Americans Just Won’t Do’ - I’m seeing it happen in real time.

American Thinker ^ | 29 Dec, 2025 | Douglas Flint

[MtnClimber]

In the eighties, I had a friend who worked for me on and off. He was a competent handyman and could do an oil change without screwing it up, something that was always useful in an auto shop, which I ran. Eventually, however, he got a better paying job as a drywaller.

Anyone who has ever done a home project with even a small drywall repair knows how difficult it is not to have even a small repair stick out like a sore thumb. Stevie was good and patient. He has that ability to measure with his eye. And so he was a very good drywaller, making a respectable wage with some benefits.

But about a decade later, he came back to my shop, needing work. He explained that his business had been taken over by mostly Hispanic workers, who worked as sub-contractors and were paid not by the hour, but by the number of sheets of drywall they hung. No benefits, of course. Their work may not have been great, but it was acceptable.

In all likelihood, many if not most of these new drywallers were illegal aliens. And in a one-decade cycle, drywalling became one of those jobs Americans just won’t do.

There is no such thing as a job Americans just won’t do. There are jobs Americans don’t want to or can’t get hired to do at the prevailing wage.

Some guys have the balance of a cat. They can walk on a 60-degree slope as easily as I walk on a treadmill. They tend to make good roof, chimney, and gutter masters if these are the fields they choose to enter. A fair number of guys would do this work when it pays a fair wage with benefits to cover the risk.

[EVO X]

This was some years ago. I had the opportunity to play golf at a nice Chicago area country club. The caddy volunteered he and his wife split time between Arizona and the Chicago area. He had parents in the Chicago area and the wife had parents in Arizona. He did the golf caddy thing while the wife worked in restaurants while the grand parents helped watched the children.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Y’all are all worrying too much. This nation is so Godless and far down that path to turn around. The Chinese with their Mexican allies will take over here and EVERYONE able to work WILL, exactly like they’re told, or die. The Chinese AND Mexicans have a way of FORCING a change of attitude.

[kvanbrunt2]

It will stop when the lawyers and accountants can be outsourced. or h1b’d.

[GranTorino]

Stop sending American labor to college.

[Menes]

You are correct. Many Europan immigrants really brought professional skills with themselves to America - to America‘s benefit.

But also to their own, as they could achieve a standard of living in America which they never would’ve been able to reach at home…