Somalis and manual work

[Neptune]

I was watching this video about farming in Puntland, and the farmer at 3:30 mentions that whenever he would bring workers, they would leave. He has to rely on Ethiopians for most of his workforce. He says our people can't commit to hard work. This way of thinking just promotes laziness in my opinion. How is unemployment better than working with one's hands? This stigma against manual work needs to be erased.

 

[gasara]

Usually these people outsource cheap labour because they don't want to pay their workers well at all. They hire the team that is willing to do it the cheapest. I saw it happen once where the farmer just hired non somalis and treated them poorly. You can see it even here in America and Canada they outsource workers for these manual jobs and they get paid next to nothing. In Galbeed you will see somalis performing manual work all the time. But at the end of the day its on their own land and they get good returns from owning such land.

 

[Shimbiris]

I was watching this video about farming in Puntland, and the farmer at 3:30 mentions that whenever he would bring workers, they would leave. He has to rely on Ethiopians for most of his workforce. He says our people can't commit to hard work. This way of thinking just promotes laziness in my opinion. How is unemployment better than working with one's hands? This stigma against manual work needs to be erased.

I used to buy into this but as someone who's been back to Somalia frequently and was in Bosaso during the summer of '23 it's not really true. I saw plenty of young Somali men generally desperate to do anything to make it in life. These ninjas were even willing to get on rickety, ramshackle boats to brave the Gulf trip up to war torn Yemen for a shot at trekking to somewhere like Turkiye then Europe. Someone with that kinda xinyo would work a farm just fine.

It's just that these jobs mostly pay dog shit. It's the same exact reason cadaans don't wanna work some southern farmer's slave labor conditions fruit farm or whatever. Back breaking work for very, very little. Even these Ethiopians don't want to really do it for long and are daydreaming about becoming taxi drivers in the Gulf instead. Young Somalis, men and women, are desperate for a prosperous life and, sadly, that's not usually to be had for the vast majority in the Horn.

 

[TheLand]

I used to buy into this but as someone who's been back to Somalia frequently and was in Bosaso during the summer of '23 it's not really true. I saw plenty of young Somali men generally desperate to do anything to make it in life. These ninjas were even willing to get on rickety, ramshackle boats to brave the Gulf trip up to war torn Yemen for a shot at trekking to somewhere like Turkiye then Europe. Someone with that kinda xinyo would work a farm just fine.

It's just that these jobs mostly pay dog shit. It's the same exact reason cadaans don't wanna work some southern farmer's slave labor conditions fruit farm or whatever. Back breaking work for very, very little. Even these Ethiopians don't want to really do it for long and are daydreaming about becoming taxi drivers in the Gulf instead. Young Somalis, men and women, are desperate for a prosperous life and, sadly, that's not usually to be had for the vast majority in the Horn.

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[AbrahamFreedom]

So true. I know a few from the diaspora who started businesses there that said Somalis demand khat and payment upfront and don't do any work and then get fired. They all lost their businesses due to them.

 

[Keep it a boqol]

That’s because they get checks from their family abroad

 

[_Yusuf_]

I was watching this video about farming in Puntland, and the farmer at 3:30 mentions that whenever he would bring workers, they would leave. He has to rely on Ethiopians for most of his workforce. He says our people can't commit to hard work. This way of thinking just promotes laziness in my opinion. How is unemployment better than working with one's hands? This stigma against manual work needs to be erased.

He should import D&M from those IDP camps, they are hard working folks. You could even set up a little house next to your farm so they are not far from the work site.

 

[Midas]

Low paying jobs are the norm. The reality is that economic development is extermely difficult. Look at all these african countries which have been mainly peaceful for the last 30 years. Outside of some improvement in the educational system. They have completely failed to build any real instutiontional capacity or transform their economy at all. In India, the supposed next big thing. Real wages for the bottom 90% have been mainly stagnant for the last decade. it's so bad that people are actually moving back to the villages and picking up farming again.

 

[Idilinaa]

Low paying jobs are the norm. The reality is that economic development is extermely difficult. Look at all these african countries which have been mainly peaceful for the last 30 years. Outside of some improvement in the educational system. They have completely failed to build any real instutiontional capacity or transform their economy at all. In India, the supposed next big thing. Real wages for the bottom 90% have been mainly stagnant for the last decade. it's so bad that people are actually moving back to the villages and picking up farming again.

With Somalia this might change soon with the investment in livestock/agriculture with improved machinery and manufacturing factories/plants. It will increase productivity with less manpower.

The crux of agricultural based economy is lack of industrialization and unregulated hyper capitalism that leaves wealth in the hands of a few and renders it with lack of redistribution.

In India 1 million people control 80% of all the wealth in the country, in a population of more than 1 billion. 1 trillion GDP and the workers that generate it touch less than a fraction of it. So they essentially pay their workers and employees dirt poor salaries with very little economic security or mobility . It probably has the highest wealth inequality in the world.

In America employers are prevented doing this due to labour unions, trade unions and minimum wage laws. Take for example the ''Writers Guild Strike'' that happened recently.
So they often try to circumvent paying decent salaries and outsource cheap labour to migrants so they can pay them less than the minimum wage and not cover expensive stuff like health insurance etc.

You are even starting to see this type of cheap labour exploitation and outsourcing happen more blatantly in South Korea nowadays.

 

[Zak12]

Agriculture really is a dead end industry in poorer countries. I sincerely hope Somalia doesn't fall into that trap when it becomes fully stable and pursues development in other economic sectors.

 

[TheLand]

Agriculture really is a dead end industry in poorer countries. I sincerely hope Somalia doesn't fall into that trap when it becomes fully stable and pursues development in other economic sectors.

This is the thing I don’t understand when people talk about ‘fertile land’ in the south. Sure, it can feed the country but it won’t move the needle, otherwise places like Latin America would be doing much better but instead they are all trying to tahriib to the much colder and less-fertile soil of North America.

 

[TheLand]

Somalis look down on and ridicule anyone who engages in anything remotely close to manual labor. Sure some work at warehouses abroad, but in Somalia if you try to go jogging in the morning for example or do gardening work, mowing your lawn as you would in the west the people come to watch you like some lunatic circus act.

 

[The truth seeker]

Somalis look down on and ridicule anyone who engages in anything remotely close to manual labor. Sure some work at warehouses abroad, but in Somalia if you try to go jogging in the morning for example or do gardening work, mowing your lawn as you would in the west the people come to watch you like some lunatic circus act.

Trade jobs in America pay very well and are in high demand the programs are usually two years sad that Somalis look down on this

if you want to build a nation you have to do it bottom up china in the 80s used to be extremely poor now they have the second largest economy and there cites are some of the best kept and most developed

 

[The truth seeker]

This is the thing I don’t understand when people talk about ‘fertile land’ in the south. Sure, it can feed the country but it won’t move the needle, otherwise places like Latin America would be doing much better but instead they are all trying to tahriib to the much colder and less-fertile soil of North America.

Farming is good for trade and devolvement of the nation Iowa is among the biggest producers of corn in the world they rely on selling it to other places on America and other nations for cash

The less fertile soil is really only relegated to Canada the Midwest is ideal for farming and it has one of the worlds largest rivers running through it making trade easy

 

[Abdisamad]

So true. I know a few from the diaspora who started businesses there that said Somalis demand khat and payment upfront and don't do any work and then get fired. They all lost their businesses due to them.

They demand khat?

Are they coming for work or to chill?

 

[Idilinaa]

Somalis look down on and ridicule anyone who engages in anything remotely close to manual labor. Sure some work at warehouses abroad, but in Somalia if you try to go jogging in the morning for example or do gardening work, mowing your lawn as you would in the west the people come to watch you like some lunatic circus act.

I don't agree with this. I showed in another thread that most doing construction work or builders are actually just local Somalis. It's easy to see why because a lot of them are just graduates from vocational schools and the companies have videos/galleries of them.

It shows you that they don't dislike doing manual labour.

Been all over Somalia , Kenya, Ethiopia etc. I have seen videos and photos of various construction sites , detailed studies and reports as well. You forget i am the user on this site who has a keen interest in housing and urban planning in Somali communities.

They are not mostly madow weyne

Somali construction workers in Mogadishu

Reviving vocational education and training across Somalia

The project focuses on aligning the supply of skilled Somali labour, particularly in the energy sector, with labour market demand.

www.giz.de

Somali construction workers in Garowe/Puntland

You can literally see this for yourself, and visit various construction company websites where they show videos and galleries of their laborers and team in action.

Gallery - Albashid Constructions

albashid.com

Buruuj Construction and Real Estate – Buruuj Construction and Real Estate

Buruuj Construction and Real Estate

buruuj.so

It's just local Somalis of all stripes doing the work for the most part and the ones who actually opt for unskilled labour low wage work the most is actually Somalis of poorer less well off backgrounds that are desperate for employment opportunities to support themselves with, while the construction managers, technician builders and civil engineers managing those sites come from more educated skilled backgrounds and in many cases graduates of universities or vocational schools.

They want to outsource cheap labour and exploit people from abroad. Why do you think the Somalis working for him are Somalis from Dhagaxbur and Jigjiga from the Somali region in Ethiopia? Like he said in the video OP posted.

It's equivalent to saying white people in America look down on manual labour because they hire a lot of Mexicans and immigrants do the farming work on the farms they own. Because those immigrants are willing to be payed less and put up with more.

Also Jogging, gardening and hiking is increasingly popular in Somalia. Gardening especially you can see it in around peoples homes which is surrounded by greenery, they plant trees and fruits and maintain it, no one looks down on anyone for doing that.

 

[Idilinaa]

They demand khat?

Are they coming for work or to chill?

It's not true. @AbrahamFreedom makes crap up all the time. The amount of times i have to fact check him.

People go under contracts, they don't ask to be payed up front, what they are owed once they fulfill the work is in the contract and no one demands khat either that just silly.

If Somalis behaved in anyway that he tries to pretend that they do, there would be zero business activity and lack of trust. The reason people trust eachother is because most stick to their commitments. Violating trust often carries significant social and economic consequences.

 

[Askari]

my family was building little strip mall and hired bunch of locals to do the work.those ninjas would should up at 9,work for 2 hours and take 2 hour lunch break and want get off at 3.I forced to hire Ethiopians to finish the work

 

[Riftvalley]

He said young man came from qabridahre and jigjiga to do the work rather than puntlanders. The translation given was Ethiopia when he didn’t specify if it was Somalis from Ethiopia or Oromos etc.


150 dollars for a Married man with children. Can he save from that?