The value of labor isn't inherent, it's determined by the market. Ditch digging is worth less than programming in the market only because there are more ditch diggers than programmers. If you can afford to educate people to the point where they have the choice to do something beyond digging ditches, the value of ditch digging labor rises to more accurately reflect how difficult the work is.
Hard labor is only worth $10 an hour when a society is unable to provide enough opportunity.
Edit: What I'm trying to say is that laborers will benefit from the higher paying jobs, but only if a society can provide enough educational opportunity that it will shrink the number of people who have to do the labor.
While social mobility is important, look at the speed at which the economy transitions. There are tremendous costs imposed by corporate/social welfare programs that prop up industries... they insulate workers from economic reality for a while and then suddenly reality catches up.
We define ourselves by our training, our job, and we expect the economy to stand still and allow us to continue doing something we were trained to do decades ago... all the way until retirement.
We feel indignation when a job goes away, and we feel that it's appropriate to be proud of skills that the economy no longer needs. This is absurd. Learn something new.
Society provides plenty of opportunity, the problem is that people have unrealistic expectations of what amount of effort ought to result in a particular standard of living and a particular level of job security.
Hard labor is valuable. Sure, it's difficult to get around when your GPS software is buggy. But's its also hard to get around if nobody has built any roads.
Generally speaking, our economy doesn't accurately price in how exhausting and difficult it is to work with your hands because there's less of a barrier to entry when it comes to labor. If there was equal opportunity, there would be a larger number of people competing for white collar jobs in an air conditioned office.
Hard labor is only worth $10 an hour when a society is unable to provide enough opportunity.
Edit: What I'm trying to say is that laborers will benefit from the higher paying jobs, but only if a society can provide enough educational opportunity that it will shrink the number of people who have to do the labor.
Social mobility is the key.