America's been painted into a corner with our job market. Over the years, unskilled labor positions have been outsourced while skilled labor positions have required more specific skillsets. I can point to my own industry, IT, as a perfect example:
When I started in IT in the mid-90s, anyone who could code a simple HTML web page was considered an "IT guy." Over the years, the understanding of computer basics has become commonplace to the point that Indians with a basic grasp of the English language could talk your 80 year old grandmother through clearing her Internet cache or rebooting her computer.
Now, even the Indians are starting to show their lack of advanced skills while lower-level IT positions such as help desk and desktop support are being "insourced" with many companies contracting their support for those roles to American workers. Sadly, the skillsets required for domestic help are higher than what was expected of the Indians, so you have many help desk positions going unfilled due to lack of basic IT functional understanding (i.e. the difference between RAM and disk space).
I'm seeing more and more often that the "low end" IT people are, to be frank, really dumb. They know how to shuffle around work orders to their engineers or do basic, scripted IT support, but overall, they have no drive to be better, they are just happy to have a job. Meanwhile, the rest of us are becoming more specialized in our disciplines, leaving gaps in certain specialties.
I have to imagine this all translates to other industries as well.
We suffer from the same disease here. Upper Management has decided to make Help Desk staff P/T, they are only allowed hours below the Obamacare minimum hours per week.
It takes 12 to 18 months to get them up to speed to perform to a level we can rely on to function independently. Those with any ability and drive are usually gone in less than 2 years for a Full Time position some where else.
The Poor ones never leave. Out of 8 Hired 2 years ago, 4 left for Greener pastures, two were fired and the other two can hardly log a call properly.