Quote:
Originally Posted by NuclearFart
To be honest, I'm not sure I even know exactly where the distinction between white and blue lies. I don't think manual labor vs office job, tech school vs. university, or Oxford dictionary vocabulary vs coprolalia etc. covers it.
What is the guy in IT who builds servers and desktop computers? What about that mechanic at Tunerworks who sits in a office most of the day procuring parts? A child development daycare worker?
I suppose this supports the assertion that this is a very anachronistic debate.
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White collar vs Blue collar in the traditional sense is now pretty meaningless. When 85% of people were still farmers I'm sure being a clerk at a bank was a relatively prestigious position. There weren't that many white collar jobs to be had because most of the population didn't use their services.
With the shifting of the economy due to technology, demand for white collar services has exploded. Telecommunications companies are some of the biggest businesses in the world and I would assume only a small fraction of their employees are the blue collar installers, but almost all the jobs they provide are pretty low paying.
White collar "labour" jobs have exploded.
We would be better off talking now about high value jobs versus low value jobs.
Anything that requires high skill, extensive training, or is remote/undesirable has the potential to be a high value job.
I think more and more we are seeing that blue collar vs white collar doesn't matter as long as you are in the top 5-10% of earners in any field of work.