Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why America has so few carpenters

thehustle.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 251 posts

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#22

Post by lotsofpulp »

fma wrote: post #19

I'm a little surprised it cites carpenters make more than real estate agents. I'd assume a full time agent (not your neighbor who just happened to have a license) could make more than 50k a year. If I recall, average home price now sells at 300k. A realtor keeping 2% after fees...buy/sell 10 houses and that's 60k.

Number of homes sold keeps decreasing, and there is an extremely low barrier to entry for real estate agent.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#25

Post by [deleted] »

wardedVibe wrote: post #14
rdtwo wrote: post #3

Like every other profession with a supposed shortage the pay and work conditions suck. And guess what shortage… It’s like there is a shortage of people willing to pick fruit at 10$ an hour and live in terrible conditions while exposed to harsh chemicals. No shit you need to pay people a whole lot more money

Managers complaining about "not enough x" mean "I'm not willing to pay the market rate for x". Like, its a free market, up your price... or do you think basic economics don't apply to labor too? I'm surprised this article doesn't examine why companies aren't upping their pay.

[deleted]

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#26

Post by paulpauper »

wardedVibe wrote: post #14
rdtwo wrote: post #3

Like every other profession with a supposed shortage the pay and work conditions suck. And guess what shortage… It’s like there is a shortage of people willing to pick fruit at 10$ an hour and live in terrible conditions while exposed to harsh chemicals. No shit you need to pay people a whole lot more money

Managers complaining about "not enough x" mean "I'm not willing to pay the market rate for x". Like, its a free market, up your price... or do you think basic economics don't apply to labor too? I'm surprised this article doesn't examine why companies aren't upping their pay.

they are not upping pay, because it's not profitable. to pay ppl enough $ to entice them to do carpentry is not profitable, hence so few of them. I remember climbing a 4,000 ft mountain in a day in the hot sun..you could not pay me enough $ to ever want to do that again, and even if you could, it would never be profitable. That's why things are airlifted.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#28

Post by georgeoliver »

You can make a living as a carpenter, and the work is often glorious, but like lots of industries wealth is often built on the exploitation of labor. Unions have been gutted over the last 100 years, so if you want to run an honest business and earn a good income you need to do high-end work.

But who are you working for? The upper classes. Of course these lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc. are not specifically to blame, many are kind and decent human beings. But we're all living in the same system, and to put it in HN terms, we need to wipe and reinstall the OS.

Seeing more women in the trade (seems like a lot more in the last five years) does give me some sense of a positive change. As far as I can tell contractors are still quite ethnically/racially segregated though.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#30

Post by [deleted] »

georgeoliver wrote: post #28

You can make a living as a carpenter, and the work is often glorious, but like lots of industries wealth is often built on the exploitation of labor. Unions have been gutted over the last 100 years, so if you want to run an honest business and earn a good income you need to do high-end work. But who are you working for? The upper classes. Of course these lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc. are not specifically to blame…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN