A post on X arguing that “if white-collar university graduates shift into blue-collar work, the existing high-school-educated blue-collar workforce will be wiped out” sparked a wide-ranging debate on 5ch about the future of the labor market. The discussion spread in many directions — the hardships faced by the “employment ice age” generation, comparisons with the current situation in China, fears of being replaced by AI, and the brutal reality of physical labor in the summer heat — with opinions sharply divided.
Kumaojisan
@tantoelite
Sorry to say it, but if white-collar university grads shift into blue-collar work, I think the existing high-school-educated blue-collar workers will end up getting wiped out 😅
Source: x.com / Original post here
They'll have no stamina and burn out fast, won't they
If that were really going to happen, it already would have during the employment ice age generation — so no, that's not it
Fine for guys in their teens or twenties, but no way for women or older men
Kind of hard to have a serious discussion when the whole premise is unrealistic
Seeing how many people quit their government jobs the second disaster relief work got tough tells you everything — people just want an easy ride, so they're not about to take up manual labor in the first place
They'll get wiped out. In every country except the ones with low university enrollment rates like Japan's, this has already happened naturally
Didn't high school grads from the ice age generation actually struggle a lot? Sounds rough — apparently in China right now, university grads are flooding into manual labor jobs too
>>8 Actually, during the ice age generation, high school grads had it easier — more job options
It's grunt work where efficiency and productivity don't matter at all, just sheer persistence — which is exactly why nobody wants to do it
If the logic is that AI is going to take over mental labor, then long before high school grads get pushed out by college grads, there'll be even less point in going to college at all
Being Japanese, people will probably use this as an excuse to quit their salaryman jobs — and we'll just end up with a flood of new restaurants
Wouldn't they just end up putting only women and old men on basic income over this?
This would mean humans no longer need to trial-and-error anything
I'm on welfare (namapo), but listening to INMU KING has me stunned at how far AI has come
Do they really think their bodies can handle it? Naive. Companies want them gone anyway, so there's no mercy
Even if you suggest efficiency improvements on-site — like wrapping up each day's work right around quitting time — you'll just get bullied for it
With gender equality, women moved into blue-collar workplaces too, but since they lack the strength they get assigned light duty, while men end up stuck doing all the heavy labor for the same pay — it's getting unbearable
If white-collar workers were really doing all this trial-and-error, Japan wouldn't have fallen this far
No way white-collar university grads could handle blue-collar work lol
Who knows. Some people are suited for it, some aren't. If they're more capable they'll get hired, but will that actually fix the chronic labor shortage? Even if they get pushed out, there's plenty of other work out there. If you can take out a huge loan to attend a bottom-tier ('F-rank') university and still end up doing manual labor anyway, you might as well just do that from the start
That's because Japan's university enrollment rate is extremely low compared to other developed countries, and even Russia and Ukraine — about 30 points lower, at roughly 50%. So there's always been a natural division where college grads go white-collar and high school grads go blue-collar. But if that division breaks down, high school grads will get wiped out — even blue-collar jobs will start requiring a degree
>>27 Isn't that last line kind of off? Spending four years in college just to do manual labor is a total waste
>>30 Plenty of science/engineering grads become electricians and the like
>>30 Even if it's a waste, it'll happen naturally once the university enrollment rate rises to match other countries, or once white-collar jobs shrink. The world isn't full of loners and otaku — there aren't that many college grads who'd rather become a NEET than do blue-collar work
Blue-collar work is definitely going to demand a lot more efficiency and productivity than it does now — and honestly, it's already being demanded these days
Nobody's asking the middle-aged guy who just transferred in to think — just shut up and work
There are occasionally white-collar grads who flee into blue-collar work, but without exception they turn out useless there
Obviously, even in physical labor, it's the smart, law-abiding, serious workers who are valued most — and that trend is only going to get stronger going forward
With subcontractor after subcontractor in the chain, you end up with incidents like today's train accident
It's nearly 40°C out there in summer these days — I can't imagine white-collar workers used to air conditioning handling site work
By the time AI can do human jobs, the world will already be a mess from AI being abused or running out of control
That American plumber who made it big earning 40 million yen a year was originally an IT engineer, you know. But in Japan, that kind of blue-collar worker will never end up ranking above a trading-company salaryman
To begin with, blue-collar work never really required even a high school education. Long ago, things shifted so that even the not-so-bright kids headed for bottom-tier jobs — where nothing taught in high school actually mattered — mostly went through high school anyway, just to keep up appearances. Times have changed again, and now it's just that those same kids, destined for bottom-tier jobs regardless, mostly go on to university too
If that actually happened, the people pushed out would turn to crime, like old-time cowboys. Is it really okay for Japan to become that dangerous a country?
>>41 Some young people are already running wild doing 'yami baito' (shady black-market gig jobs often tied to scams and robberies)
They'd probably just get crushed by the blue-collar workers instead. It's not just the physical labor — you need the mental toughness to withstand being yelled at, bullied, and worn down psychologically
The ones who get weeded out are the ones who can't stick with it, college grad or not. In blue-collar work, tons of people quit after just one day
>>76 Yeah, there are plenty who casually quit after three days too
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “Expert Claims: ‘If College-Grad Office Workers Flood into Manual Labor, High-School-Grad Laborers Will Be Wiped Out’ — Sparks Fierce Debate.”
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