[caseysoftware]

> Compared to McDonald's employees, probably. Compared to other actual technical jobs, like electrician, I can't imagine.

When someone has few work skills - as noted in the article - do they more closely resemble a McDonald's employee or an electrician?

Yes, people with low/no skills and little/no experience tend to start in crap roles. Some people will not further their skills, abilities, or knowledge and stay there. Others - like Ms Wait in the article - will use it as a stepping stone to pay the bills as they grow and improve.

Wiping out low level jobs by paying "too much" (yes, entirely subjective) raises the bottom rung of the ladder but also puts it out of reach of others. There's no magic right number but there are dangers in having it too low or too high.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

Empirical evidence for the idea that raising the minimum wage in the US will lead to unemployment is quite weak. Those arguments may kick in at some point, but it's pretty clear we're way under the price level that would do that.

You're using some common rhetoric to reframe this entirely as one of personal volition. Just be like Ms Wait and pull yourself up the ladder. This is a form of the just world delusion, and ignores all the complex ways poverty can be a trap, or how people working at this end of the labor market are basically one roll of the dice away from financial ruin due to illness, car accident, etc.

[HarryHirsch]

Tell me - are there any possibilities of advancement in today's streamlined datacenter job? In the past, someone eager and capable might have been given training opportunities, but that doesn't really exist any longer, does it?

[filoleg]

Not sure about Amazon datacenters, but I know an actual person in real life who went from an unskilled Amazon warehouse worker to a full-time SDE at Amazon with zero previous coding experience or a relevant degree. All in a 1-year timespan iirc, simply going through one of the training programs that their warehouse offered.

Apparently, those on-the-job training programs that Amazon offers actually tend to work at times. And of course this is just a single datapoint not indicative of anything, but it kinda shows that those programs might actually work to a degree. I don't doubt that their success rate is likely not even close to 100%, but if it worked even for a chunk of the people attempting it, it is still something.

[throwaway0a5e]

It's not like they promote people on a schedule but BigCos typically use the lower levels as part of the hiring pool for the higher levels. This has benefits since you know that anyone already working that role already knows your policies and procedures and are basically pre-vetted so you don't have to worry about getting them 90% of the way through the pipeline then failing the drug test or background check.

There's basically no chance of moving into a white collar role internally unless you get a degree but there's definitely room for advancement. Though you could probably advance faster by jumping ship.

[caseysoftware]

Nope, doesn't look like it. Google is screwing over tons of people here and obviously they're not alone.

Why do we "trust" them again?

[username90]

Training unskilled workers and giving them normal professional worker wages is screwing them over how? It isn't like they would be better off at mcdonalds.

[caseysoftware]

Teaching them skills and laying them off without cause is screwing them over. If you also consider that the skills they teach aren't enough to get them to the next level, it's worse.

This is covered in great detail in the article.