America’s Lost Work Ethic and the End of its global Exceptionalism – Part 4/5

December 12, 2011

“What are these jobs that Americans will not do?” Slate.com asked. “Do they exist or are they a figment of the business community’s imagination? It turns out that their claims are largely true—there are plenty of jobs Americans avoid.


Manufacturers Looking for Skilled Workers

Let’s take a tour of them.

“Americans shun pretty much any unskilled labor that requires them to get their hands dirty: landscaping, entry-level construction, picking fruits and vegetables (Reuters reports that “up to 70 percent of U.S. farm workers are estimated to be undocumented, totaling about 500,000 people”), cleaning hotel rooms, busing tables, and prep cooking in urban restaurants,” and “American workers appear to be less interested in some kinds of factory jobs.”

In addition, “Americans, it seems, are also less willing to take stressful jobs that require lots of training and long hours, and that require them to work in unpleasant environments…”

For example, “The American Hospital Association says there are 118,000 nursing vacancies in the United States.”

In fact, the Washington Business Journal reported October 2011, “U.S. manufacturing companies have as many as 600,000 jobs that they cannot find workers with the proper skills to fill, according to a survey by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute.”


What the American Self-Esteem Boosting Parenting Movement did to the US – Did your child have fun today by skipping homework and avoid reading a book?

The survey found 5 percent of current manufacturing jobs are unfilled due to lack of qualified candidates, 67 percent of manufacturers have a moderate to severe shortage of qualified workers, and 56 percent expect the shortage to increase in the next three to five years.

What about China? Do the Chinese have a similar attitude?

Continued on December 13, 2011 in America’s Lost Work Ethic and the End of its global Exceptionalism – Part 5 or return to Part 3

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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4 Comments | America, American culture, business, capitalism, China, Chinese Culture, cultural differences, economy, education, family values | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Chinese Work Ethic

May 30, 2010

At the turn of the century, Jack London visited China (1904-05) and saw how hard the Chinese worked. He surmised that Westerners, living in ignorant bliss, had no understanding of Asian cultures and were far too confident of their superiority to realize that their days of world power were severely numbered. He urged that Westerners make concerted efforts to meet with Japanese and Chinese to understand each other better as equals. Source: History News Network

Jack London with his wife

In fact, I’ve met highly educated Chinese who came to the US and couldn’t get jobs in their field of study. Did they give up and lay around complaining how unfair life was?  No. They became handy men or worked in construction for far less than what a Latino, illegal immigrant worker earns. These same Chinese, with strong family values, also save money to send their children to college.

Sir Robert Hart, who lived and worked in China (1854 – 1908) and is considered the Godfather of China’s modernization said the same thing Jack London would say decades later. In the 1880s, he predicted that within a century China would be a super power again.

Sir Robert Hart in China

The Chinese work ethic is also reflected in Article 42 of the PRC’s Constitution.

“Citizens of the People’s Republic of China have the right as well as the duty to work. Using various channels, the state creates conditions for employment, strengthens labour protection, improves working conditions and, on the basis of expanded production, increases remuneration for work and social benefits. Work is the glorious duty of every able-bodied citizen. All working people in state enterprises and in urban and rural economic collectives should perform their tasks with an attitude consonant with their status as masters of the country. The state promotes socialist labour emulation, and commends and rewards model and advanced workers. The state encourages citizens to take part in voluntary labour. The state provides necessary vocational training to citizens before they are employed.”

Who built the Great Wall of China?
Who built China’s Grand Canal?
Who built the first emperor’s tomb and all those Terra Cotta Warriors?
Who took a country in 1950 that produced 0.005 kilowatts of electricity and built more than a hundred modern cities in less than three decades with plans to build 400 more—something historians say has never happened in the recorded history of humanity?
Whom has the only viable space program left on the earth with plans to go to the moon and beyond?
Who built America’s Western Railroads during the 19th century?

To learn more see All About Balance

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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1 Comment | America, China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, cultural differences, family values, government | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse