Are there jobs for Low Skilled Lower Middle Class White People in Los Angeles? (Richmond: fit in, apartment complex)

[Old Tired Man]

I was telling my people about a recent trip I took to Los Angeles and they all told me that they would LOVE to move to LA and get a little piece of paradise. They want to live near the beach in a place like Santa Monica and relax and laid back and live the good life in warm weather year around. These are some White relatives who don't have any specific job training and just a High School Diploma.

When I told them the average home in a place like Santa Monica costs near a million dollars and there would be no time for being laid back and hanging out at the beach, they looked at me like I had two heads. Then I really broke out of the politically correct zone and told them that unless you were an immigrant and spoke Spanish it would be very difficult to find a entry level job set aside for low skilled workers. They told me I was lying, no jobs were set aside for immigrants. I told them it was not official but employers just preferred hiring immigrants in low wage lower skilled jobs and as a white person you would be discriminated against. It was possible they could find jobs but the job search would be long and hard and most of your coworkers would be immigrants.

Am I wrong?

[PDF]

Originally Posted by Old Tired Man

I was telling my people about a recent trip I took to Los Angeles and they all told me that they would LOVE to move to LA and get a little piece of paradise. They want to live near the beach in a place like Santa Monica and relax and laid back and live the good life in warm weather year around. These are some White relatives who don't have any specific job training and just a High School Diploma.

When I told them the average home in a place like Santa Monica costs near a million dollars and there would be no time for being laid back and hanging out at the beach, they looked at me like I had two heads. Then I really broke out of the politically correct zone and told them that unless you were an immigrant and spoke Spanish it would be very difficult to find a entry level job set aside for low skilled workers. They told me I was lying, no jobs were set aside for immigrants. I told them it was not official but employers just preferred hiring immigrants in low wage lower skilled jobs and as a white person you would be discriminated against. It was possible they could find jobs but the job search would be long and hard and most of your coworkers would be immigrants.

Am I wrong?

They won't make it, especially if they want to live in Santa Monica and all that. You don't need a college degree or be in some specialized career, but at least have some skills. I'm moving to LA next week and I don't know Spanish or have a degree, but the jobs I am looking for aren't unskilled labor.

It can be done, but you need to have some experience.

[Dunbar42]

Depends on the job. Something like retail, front of restaurant, barista etc would probably be easier to find for a white person than doing landscaping for minimum wage in LA where they'd probably be laughed at if they applied for a job. Affording rent on the west side of LA on the income from unskilled jobs would be very hard though.

[munchitup]

Originally Posted by Dunbar42

Depends on the job. Something like retail, front of restaurant, barista etc would probably be easier to find for a white person than doing landscaping for minimum wage in LA where they'd probably be laughed at if they applied for a job. Affording rent on the west side of LA on the income from unskilled jobs would be very hard though.

There just are not that many low-income or working white people in Los Angeles (and I mean in the literal city limits, I know there are lots of that type of community outside the city limits in the metro area). I'm sure if you applied for the job as a gardener or in a factory they wouldn't laugh at you, it just isn't common. In college I worked at manufacturing-type jobs where I was the only one that was white and probably one of the few legal employees, they didn't laugh at me when I applied. Besides those jobs wouldn't pay nearly enough to live in SM anyways - black, white or brown, illegal or legal. Hell my wife and I are professionals (her with an advanced degree) and we would be scraping by living in Santa Monica.

[PDF]

Originally Posted by munchitup

There just are not that many low-income or working white people in Los Angeles (and I mean in the literal city limits, I know there are lots of that type of community outside the city limits in the metro area). I'm sure if you applied for the job as a gardener or in a factory they wouldn't laugh at you, it just isn't common. In college I worked at manufacturing-type jobs where I was the only one that was white and probably one of the few legal employees, they didn't laugh at me when I applied. Besides those jobs wouldn't pay nearly enough to live in SM anyways - black, white or brown, illegal or legal. Hell my wife and I are professionals (her with an advanced degree) and we would be scraping by living in Santa Monica.

What do you mean by there are not many low-income working white people? When you say low-income, do you mean stuff like fast food?

[Old Tired Man]

Here are the type of jobs these guys and their peer group, who live in basically white/black only York PA, do:

Bread Delivery Truck Driver
Barber
Assembly Line Worker
Grocery Store Cashier
Data Entry Clerk
Maintenance Man at apartment complex

They want to do these types of jobs in sunny Southern CA.

What I tried to tell them was in blue collar white/black dominated York PA, they could make $35K doing these jobs and if they had good credit they could buy a nice home with that type of salary. But in LA, these type of jobs are not done generally by American Born folks and while they may get lucky and find a job like this in LA, they will not fit in with their cowokers because they don't speak Spanish. And while they may make a few thousand more they won't be living in a nice town in a single family home like they did in York PA, in Santa Monica on a Bread Delivery Man's wages. They don't believe me.

[munchitup]

Originally Posted by PDF

What do you mean by there are not many low-income working white people? When you say low-income, do you mean stuff like fast food?

I mean more like hard labor type stuff I guess. Landscaping, manufacturing, packaging, etc. Not sure where to put service people in there because you definitely see a lot of white serving workers, especially in Hollywood with its population of young adults trying to break into the entertainment industry in one way or another, plus a lot of college kids going to schools like Musician's Institute and LA Film School.

[PDF]

Originally Posted by munchitup

I mean more like hard labor type stuff I guess. Landscaping, manufacturing, packaging, etc. Not sure where to put service people in there because you definitely see a lot of white serving workers, especially in Hollywood with its population of young adults trying to break into the entertainment industry in one way or another, plus a lot of college kids going to schools like Musician's Institute and LA Film School.

Got it, my mind went to thinking you were talking about service workers. Which is basically majority white people.

But yeah, those hard labor jobs are pretty much all non-white.

[munchitup]

Originally Posted by Old Tired Man

Here are the type of jobs these guys and their peer group, who live in basically white/black only York PA, do:


What I tried to tell them was in blue collar white/balck dominated York PA, they could make $35K doing these jobs and if they had good credit they could buy a nice home with that type of salary. But in LA, these type of jobs are not done generally by American Born folks and while they may get lucky and find a job like this in LA, they will not fit in with their cowokers because they don't speak Spanish. And while they may make a few thousand more they won't be living in a nice town in a single family home like they did in York PA, in Santa Monica on a Bread Delivery Man's wages. They don't believe me.

No they won't be able to afford a decent home at 35k in Southern California (or pretty much any desirable big city) but that has nothing to do with the racial dynamic of the question, which seems like a weird element to me. I guess yeah most of these workers below are Hispanic in LA, but most people in LA are Hispanic, so...

• Barber - My barber's Mexican but he owns the shop...

• Assembly Line Worker - no idea, probably mostly Hispanic or Asian. The company I work for has a warehouse in Richmond, CA (similar demographics to South LA) and it was a pretty healthy mix of white, southeast Asian and Hispanic. I do think the predominate language was Tagalog or something but all races seemed to get along very well and have rapport.

• Grocery Store Cashier - Most of the TJ's cashiers are white, Ralph's cashiers a good mix - most grocery stores seem to follow this trend

• Data Entry Clerk - have no idea but my wife works with lien claiments which is about the same level - they are sorts of races, maybe majority Hispanic but again that is LA's demographic

• Maintenance Man at apartment complex - My maintenance man is Filipino, speaks English well and Spanish is probably his first language.

They want to do these types of jobs in sunny Southern CA.

They could do them but are going to have to rent an apartment in the Valley. That's the way it goes in a big city

[munchitup]

Originally Posted by PDF

Got it, my mind went to thinking you were talking about service workers. Which is basically majority white people.

But yeah, those hard labor jobs are pretty much all non-white.

It really depends on the store. Subway, McDonald's, basically huge chains are usually majority non-white while more upscale places like say, Juicy Burger or Papaya King (which went out of business, no shocker) were mostly younger college-type people and skew more towards white people.