“Anybody says we don’t need Mexican workers has an experience deficit and is certainly not in the currently starved for workers Construction Industry and I imagine a few others.”
I think part of the problem is that in the US, probably starting with the baby boomers, working with your hands became something looked down upon. This is reversing now, somewhat, but for years this has been true. With this downgrading of appreciation for honest physical work came a loss of pride in the work. Anyone who has had to hire a contractor to coordinate work on their home knows the downside of this. It’s hard to consistently find people who take pride in their work.
In Mexican culture there is no shame in doing manual labor, and they do have pride in doing the work.
When I was in college I worked a fair number of different jobs, including moving furniture (household and commercial moves). I can tell you unequivocally that the way I was looked at when I had on work clothes and was doing manual labor moving furniture was as though I was a loser - particularly if I we were moving a company to a new location and the white collar people were watching us. I remember one move of an R&D component of a chemical-based company. I was a science major and asked some questions of one of the people we were moving, and he shut me down as though I was incapable of understanding what he knew.
All honest work should be appreciated.
Agree totally.
I think government handouts are a major part of our problem. In my city we are spending millions renovating a huge abandoned factory into more government housing. This giveaway program promotes laziness and squashes any work ethic that may have existed. Why we aren’t spending the millions to create jobs for these same folks is beyond me. They should be repairing roads, cleaning depressed areas, building parks, and bettering the community rather than allowing them to sit on their behinds waiting on their EBT cards and checks that arrive on third of every month.