Mike Rowe Sounds The Alarm On Men Not Wanting To Work Anymore
Mike Rowe told Fox News this weekend that men are becoming soft and lazy in part due to how much time they are spending on screens instead of working.
Rowe made the remarks during a brief interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson during the network’s “Patriot Awards.”
“So, I’m wrong about as much as I am right. And it’s for that reason, I hate to say, ‘I told you so,’ out loud, ever,” Rowe said. “But for 15 years, my foundation has been talking about this slow, sort of, unraveling of what we loosely call work ethic, whatever that means.”
“And I mean, last week, there was an article in The New York Times called something like how to combat the assault on modern work, and I thought it was gonna be an article about coal miners or crab fishermen or, you know, big tough jobs where the danger is real. It wasn’t. It was an article about everything from paper cuts to the non-existent pet bereavement policies that are being deemed harsh, I’m not making it up,” he continued. “And so we are, we’re in a place where 7 million able-bodied men are not only not working between the ages of 25 and [inaudible]. 7 million able-bodied men are not only not working, they’re affirmatively not looking for a job. That’s never happened in peacetime, ever.”
Rowe said that people are focusing on the wrong thing by looking at the unemployment rate when they should be looking at the number of able-bodied people who do not want to work.
Rowe said that an economist he spoke to told him the thing that those men are doing is spending “on average, over 2,000 hours a year on screens.”
WATCH:
TRANSCRIPT:
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: Well, not a lot of people are working right now in the United States. And that’s a big change. That’s why maybe you have to use the drive thru because no one’s inside the restaurant. But not only is the way we work changing, our attitudes toward work are changing, and a lot of people seem to have contempt for work all of the sudden, signs are everywhere, you probably noticed them. Mike Rowe has spent a life thinking about work. He’s host of ‘How America Works’ on Fox Business Network. He joins us on the set of the Patriot Awards, of course, for a long time, the immortal host of “Dirty Jobs,” and I think our most frequent and popular guest. Anyway, thank you so much for coming back. Obviously you have noticed the change in attitude toward work, some people sort of mocking the idea of work, what’s your response to that?
MIKE ROWE: Yes. So, I’m wrong about as much as I am right. And it’s for that reason, I hate to say, ‘I told you so,’ out loud, ever. But for 15 years, my foundation has been talking about this slow sort of unraveling of what we loosely call work ethic, whatever that means. And now between Nick Eberstadt’s work, an economist who’s really drilled down on it. And I mean, last week, there was an article in The New York Times called something like how to combat the assault on modern work, and I thought it was gonna be an article about coal miners or crab fishermen or, you know, big tough jobs where the danger is real. It wasn’t. It was an article about everything from paper cuts to the non existent pet bereavement policies that are being deemed harsh, I’m not making it up. And so we are, we’re in a place where 7 million able bodied men are not only not working between the ages of 25 and [inaudible]. 7 million able bodied men are not only not working, they’re affirmatively not looking for a job. That’s never happened in peacetime, ever. And economists like Nick Eberstadt take a dim view of it, they’re worried. And they’re trying to inject that into the conversation at a time when we’re still looking at the unemployment number as the true harbinger of what’s really going on, but it’s not. In his view, it’s a depression era artifact, we’re just looking at the wrong thing, we’re looking at not what it means to have a bunch of people unemployed, but what does it mean, to have a bunch of opportunity that nobody gives a damn about? That’s a different conversation. And it’s complicated to have, because while that dynamic is clear and present, so too, is the fact that a lot of big companies in Silicon Valley are going to lay off a lot of people. And now you’re gonna have a bunch of people who aren’t trained for the jobs that do exist, sort of competing with people who have affirmatively taken themselves out of the workforce entirely. And final point, I asked Nick, ‘what are they doing? What are they doing with their time, these able bodied men? On average, over 2,000 hours a year on screens.
CARLSON: So they’re just totally hypnotized by a digital world? So at some point, the pilot shortage, for example, well known, one of the reasons it’s hard to get your plane on time or the cost is going up is because aren’t enough pilots. But that’s true for a lot of different jobs. So like, when does it start to grind to a halt?
ROWE: Well, you know, pilots get the press because it’s the pilot. But when you really follow the delays down, you’ll find it in the mechanics, you’ll find it in the flight attendants. How many airports have you been in when the crews simply couldn’t make it to the next plane? It’s because they’re working with 70% of the workforce they had three years ago. You know, 4 million fewer people are in the workforce today than before the lock downs and 4 million more jobs have opened up. It’s almost a perfect mirror image and the reflection is kind of hideous.
CARLSON: And it’s just sad because work is meaning as you have spent your life showing. Mike Rowe, the great Mike Rowe.
