Comment by jameshart
5 hours ago
People are willing to take a discount on their wages and quality of life for the intangible benefit of ‘the experience of living and working abroad for a summer’.
For non-native English speakers it also has the advantage of providing a free total immersion language course as well. People pay for opportunities like that.
So yes, an Italian 19 year old is willing to work for less money for the chance to work in a water park for a summer, improving their English and boosting their resume, and if it gives them enough money to be able to fund a couple of weekend trips to New York or DC so much the better. It’s a life experience and a working vacation.
That local 19 year olds are not seeing the same advantages to that sort of work isn’t surprising.
>That local 19 year olds are not seeing the same advantages to that sort of work isn’t surprising.
Which should be pretty revolting for them if that's the case. Instead of American 19 year olds making some summer money at the waterpark to buy their first car, they get moved aside by disposable foreign workers, so then they need to stay supported by their parents for longer till they can get a "proper" job.
And I'm European not American, but I see the same issue here. Getting minimum wage jobs in the hospitality/service sector is super competitive now due to pressure from migrant workers who will accept anything. These are jobs that used to be done by teenagers in the past for summer money but not anymore.
Employers everywhere being able allowed to min/max wages against the most desperate labor on the planet should be banned.
And then governments have the audacity to complain about people not having kids anymore. Well no shit, my dad and his peers had summer jobs since he was 14 because there were no migrant workers to replace them, and after finishing high school he already had a job in the factory with housing benefits, he was already making enough money to have a family and 2 kids, not one.
The result for the local American 19 year olds is that ticket prices at their local water park are kept low enough that they can afford to go there to cool off and be handed towels by foreign teenagers.
If the government cut off the seasonal work visas, tourist destination hospitality businesses would have to increase prices, some would go out of business, and American tourists’ quality of life would be lower.
>The result for the local American 19 year olds is that ticket prices at their local water park are kept low enough that they can afford to go there to cool off and be handed towels by foreign teenagers.
And where are 19 year old Americans getting money for water parks if they don't have jobs? Still having hobbies funded by your parents at 19 isn't really a societal win.
You say 30-50 years ago they couldn't afford that because labor costs were too high? Maybe they had jobs to pay those higher costs?
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