Economic blogger Jason Murphy says they can at Crikey:
Australia’s services industry is booming. But the transition away from traditional industries (manufacturing etc) is making some people extremely nervous. The old good jobs are going, they say.
This idea is the prime focus of a 2018 book by Jennifer Rayner, titled Blue Collar Frayed. Rayner argues: “For blue-collar blokes, work has a meaning and social context that simply isn’t found in many of the other jobs our economy is now creating. However incorrectly, teaching and caring are seen as lacking expertise or art, belonging to the domestic realm of women’s work. Retail and hospitality is what your kids do for video game money, not serious work for grown-ups. Driving is respectable enough but there’s no finished product to stand around at the end of the day, no bit of work that testifies to your skills.”