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I know it is hard, I said that in my post, but people do it. If you want to make things better, you find a way to do things that are hard. Otherwise, you continue to work two jobs, barely making ends meet, and pray that you don't get sick because those jobs probably do not provide benefits. God knows what happens when some one in that position has to retire.
People use to move up like that, and in some place they might stll do that, but not too many companies in the US work that way. There should be more on the job training but Employeers expect people to enter the job knowing the basics, how to use the correct programs, how to read and write and do math. If you don't have the basics, employeers are not going to teach them to you because there are people out there who do have those skills and that saves them money.
All the more reason to try and find a way to decrease the drop out rate and encourage people to go for at least an associates degree. Even better, we can expand votech options at high school so that kids who don't want to go to college can get their high school degree while learning a trade that they can make a good living at. The US has failed to provide enough options to a high school kid who is not interested in going to college.
But lets be real, the people discussed in that article are not likely to be college educated folks. So temp jobs at a warehouse look pretty darn good because they can make more money then what they get from the government. But the jobs suck, employeers don't trust them because there has been a decent amount of theft in the past, they get no benefits, and there are enough other people who want the same crappy job that if you call in sick one day you are removed from the schedule.
The only way to get out of that cycle is to find a way to get the skills that get you out. Since most of these folks are well over the average school age, you cannot tell them to stay in school and make a better life for themselves. So the option is to keep bouncing from crap job to crap job or to get the skills needed somehow.
Many manufacturing jobs left the US and Europe because people were being paid a good deal of money to work the line. I lived in Michigan, I know people who were making more money then their managers on the line at auto companies. Why pay that when you can pay some one in Mexico a pittance and get a similar product? Rates go up in Mexico, move the factory to someplace in Asia.
Manufacturing jobs are returning to the US but the pay is a great deal less then it was when they left. People are complaining that they used to make X amount more an hour and are begrudgingly taking the jobs. Manufacturers know that they can charge less now because there are other options and people who are returning to those jobs know the same thing.
Such is the nature of the global economy. We can piss and moan about how things used to be or we can do something about the problems that exist today. Many folks stuck in the Amazon Warehouse type jobs are going to have to choose to take the difficult route or they are going to be stuck in those jobs. It sucks but that is the new reality.
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