A labor market conundrum: Skilled and high-paying blue-collar jobs go unfilled

> The company pays manager trainees about $40,000 a year, and that’s just the beginning. Those in charge of top-grossing stores can earn $200,000, and in a few cases more than $1 million, including bonuses.

So, don't go to college and become a regional manager of a lumber company.

I feel like the only reason they can even joke with a headline like this is technically the entry level positions don't require college degrees.

My second guess is the current regional managers making over $1m a year have some type of extended formal education. I could be wrong here, but probably not.

A casual search for "84 lumber manager" on LinkedIn produced 6 relevant listings on the front page - 5 of which had university degrees.

While this is a clickbait article, it's probably worth many high schoolers recognizing that compensation is simply unevenly distributed. There's an increasing realization that going to college does not give you a fast track to FTE status in many industries anymore, and there needs to be a better understanding of the fact that the job market is, well, a market, and salaries will adjust based upon the supply of that market.

I think a lot of current CS hopefuls coming in as freshmen are going to see a shocking market adjustment when there are tens of thousands of juniors competing for the same jobs, just as we saw with law degrees after the last recession. There are way more JDs than there are good attorney jobs, and even fewer partner positions that really bring in the money.

Market dynamics affect one's well being less when you are not shooting simply for compensation, but also job satisfaction. Of course, in our society, highly indebted students are forced to be all about the money and not about the satisfaction. This doesn't lead to successful careers. It leads to burnout, disillusionment, and ennui.

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