Stop turning up your nose at 'low end' jobs

I have been in an increasing number of meetings and conversations where the theme has been “we need to focus on high-end jobs”.

In certain contexts, I think that is fine as a generalized statement but in reality the goal should be to have a labour market that is able to meet demand across industries - from so-called lower end to high end jobs.

For example, if an economic development agency decides to focus its investment recruitment efforts on certain industries that offer high wages, I don’t have a problem with that - particularly if that is aligned with other aspects of a value proposition for those sectors (e.g. New Brunswick isn’t attracting auto manufacturing no matter how hard you try).

But, in general, PETL, the PSE system, high school guidance counsellors, immigration attraction efforts, etc. need to focus on this broader objective of having a labour market that is able to meet demand across industries.

If not, places like New Brunswick will start to look like northern Canada with wages out of whack compared to the larger urban centres and where industry investment is pushed out of the province because of a lack of workers.

I have always been uncomfortable with folks who crap on jobs they don’t find appealing. There was a UdeM prof a while ago - maybe 20+ years - who did a documentary on Moncton’s sweat shops and in a very biased way trashed the back office/business services sector. It was thin - he cherry picked a few disgruntled workers from outbound telemarketing centres and basically ignored the better examples RBC, Exxon, etc.

The truth is that industry became a $1.5 billion export sector for New Brunswick and is still a dominant export industry.

Another key point about ‘low end’ jobs is that many of them are the lower rungs on a ladder that can lead to a successful and well paid career. Many of the workers the UdeM guy slagged in the late 1990s are now mid-to-later career professionals making $60k and up in banking, insurance and other sectors.

Who defines ‘low end’? How could an economy operate without restaurant workers, truck drivers, construction labourers, janitors, hotel room cleaners, etc.?

As I have stated many times before, I think we should be striving to ensure that the primary household income earner should not be at minimum wage and if they are there should be income supports to ensure they are not below the low income cutoff.

But for second income earners, students, older workers looking to supplement fixed income, etc. many of these jobs are important sources of income.

We should certainly look for ways to boost productivity leading to higher wages based on productivity gains not as a result of labour shortages here and not elsewhere. If a restaurant owner can cut her staff complement in half with technology, presumably she could boost wages (assuming she can amortize the cost of that technology and increase the business margin). That image of the manufacturing line now composed of workers in lab coats with clipboards evaluating the machines - is a good one - although not all manufacturing is as easily automated.

I also think there is room for more entrepreneurship. We have all witnessed the the rise of artisans in this province over the past 20 years. Working on an assembly line making candles or soap may seem tedious but somehow if is done at home by a craftsperson - it’s glamourous. Think about all the soap, candle, beef jerky, chocolate, coffee, jams/jellies entrepreneurs we have around these days.

We could start thinking about ‘entrepreneurializing’ some of the so-called low end jobs. Why couldn’t a small group of hotel/motel room cleaners get together and start a cleaning business? I suspect there are many jobs that could be entrepreneurialized leading to greater revenue (and possibly risk) for the worker.

I’ll end with a story I have told before. I used to work for an industry research firm that had a ‘boiler room’ of young researchers that spent their days combing through vast sources of data to glean nuggets they would then turn into value-added research documents. Kinda like what I do every single day in my current job.

We figured out this job was not for everyone and so we started offering candidates a one day trial. They would work for us for one day and get paid - if they didn’t like the job, they walked away. One day a particularly keen young lady came for an interview and told me this was “her dream job”. She had a master’s degree and was a seasoned researcher.

So we gave her the one day trial - I assigned her a project and an office.

At the end of the day, she came into my office and dropped a stack of paper on my desk and said something like “without a doubt that is the most boring, mind-numbing work I have ever done” and she walked out the door.

Essentially, she crapped all over the job that I have build a career around.

The lesson is simple. Just because you don’t like a job, doesn’t mean it is crap. I suspect more than a few folks would find being a university professor mind-numbing at times.

Let’s make sure our workforce development ecosystem is focused on ensuring labour market demand can be addressed across the spectrum of need.