I hate reading some news articles like this one. They can be really depressing at times, especially ones which point out truths some of us don’t want to admit about ourselves.
The Associated Press took a look at the job situation in the American southwest, particularly when it comes to farmers, and discovered that despite there being a lot of jobs available, Americans aren’t willing to do the manual labor. So much for the illegals taking all the jobs, right?
Benjamin Reynosa, who was picking ruby-colored grapes in 90-degree heat last week near Fowler, just south of Fresno, said he often is the only legal U.S. resident on seasonal crews. He said most people hear about the jobs through word of mouth or signs tacked outside rural stores, not the electronic registry.
“I’ve been working in agriculture for 22 years, and I can tell you there are very few gringos out here,” said Reynosa, 49, of Orange Cove, about 30 miles east of Fresno. “If people know English, they go to work in packinghouses or sit in an office.”
I don’t speak a syllable of Spanish, but I do just fine with English. Where do I sign up? My midwest location is clearly a problem for getting this job, but if I were willing to move, I’d have to have a job lined up.
The reasons for why most unemployed Americans aren’t being hired are many, but here are some of the problems as I see it.
1) How do I find an available job? The farmers and states have done a terrible job with getting the available jobs notices into the public. It seems to me the southwestern states ought to band together and make an exhaustive job database much like a Monster.com or Careerbuilder.com. If the only way to learn of a lot of these jobs is by going through the unemployment office of your city/county/state, the employer is limiting his/her talent pool substantially.
2) Farming is seasonal. One of the comforts of having a typical 9-5 job is it’s relatively safe. You know you’re probably going to have a job in a month. If you’re working a strawberry field, you’re going to be out of a job eventually.
3) California is expensive. This goes with my second point, in fact. Even if you get paid a reasonable wage for working strawberries, picking lettuce, etc, you’re going to need to find more work in order to live in California. I’m not sure how much farming work is available come late fall through the spring. I’m sure nothing compared to the need for workers in the summer.
4) Manual labor is difficult and many of us aren’t able/willing to do it. Some of us simply can’t do the sort of manual labor that is required of farming the vast fields. But an even higher number of us simply aren’t willing to leave an air conditioned building to break a sweat.
5) Unemployment benefits are much easier to obtain. Every few months you hear the fat cats in Washington are going to extend unemployment benefits. There are good reasons to do it, but you know darn well that there are quite a few people who could be working the fields, but they’d rather sit around the house and collect their government checks.
I know Mike Rowe ruffled a few feathers in the “Marble Maker” episode, where he was talking to the proprietor of Original Dirt Shirts. Mike mentioned a lot of people aren’t willing to work hard anymore. A few angry Dirty Jobs viewers wrote in criticizing Mike for his comments. But there’s no denying Mike’s claims. No one says no one is willing to work hard, but it’s obvious that a lot who can work hard simply choose not to.
Seeing ordinary men and women work hard and take pride in that work are just two of the many things I like most about Dirty Jobs.
