That's one of the biggest differences between the US and Sweden, and probably most of Europe; access to cheap labor. Too cheap, if you ask me. You could never employ somebody as a greeter here, or to pack your groceries, or to pump your gas, or other extremely menial and near useless jobs. Can people really support themselves on those, or are they forced to work multiple jobs?

It's actually becoming relevant here, because of our recent influx of largely unqualified people/immigrants. There aren't enough simple jobs that can be done without any education, and so politicians are discussing what to do about it. Personally I think it's a big step backwards to have people do extremely basic stuff as busy work. Most stores are removing manned checkouts and replacing them with self checkouts.

> You could never employ somebody as a greeter here, or to pack your groceries, or to pump your gas, or other extremely menial and near useless jobs.

Well, not full time.

Some German grocers have started to employ very young people during Fridays and Saturdays as packers. They look young enough to be still in school, also collect tips with little boxes, but they are not full-time employees but rather "mini-jobbers".

Which is just such a weird transition considering that many of the jobs I did in my youth have now been turned into their own weird job sectors like that.

While delivering papers is now something exclusively done by adults in cars, as an extra income stream for unemployed on social security. I don't know how that can be economic but I see it happening all the time.

> Personally I think it's a big step backwards to have people do extremely basic stuff as busy work.

Some would argue that's been happening on a rather massive scale for a while already. Our productivity constantly increases, so do our numbers, as such it's only a matter of time before we end up with a whole lot of "surplus" humans in terms of labor demand for keeping everything going.

That's odd. In the UK and Denmark, you get youths who look about 16 working in supermarkets, doing the normal tasks: restocking and tidying the shelves, running a checkout. They certainly don't get tips!

The more expensive shops employ more youths, I think the budget stores don't use enough staff to have an older person nearby if the teen is stuck somehow.

> That's one of the biggest differences between the US and Sweden, and probably most of Europe; access to cheap labor. Too cheap, if you ask me.

Another example: when you have road works here and a lane is closed and only one lane remains, temporary traffic lights are put in place.

In America you'll see a half dozen people managing traffic, where "managing" means "holding up a sign".

A colleague of mine was in our India office once and he said that they had a: - person that pushes buttons in elevator (at office, not some exclusive hotel) - person that you ask to to copies at xerox machine in the office

> Can people really support themselves on those, or are they forced to work multiple jobs?

The latter. The US has an army of unskilled workers that work two jobs, live on food stamps and have no health insurance.

We don’t have any minimum wage in Sweden. What we do have however are strong unions and free higher education. Somehow I get the feeling that as a nation, we care a lot more about the little guy and his social mobility than the US does.