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Why America has so few carpenters

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Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#71

Post by refurb »

kixiQu wrote: post #16

My parents met when they were both working construction. My mom was a surveyor and a laborer at various times; she helped get my dad into the union (Philly) and he was a carpenter. My mom stopped it to raise me and my sibling; my dad did it until it entirely broke his body. (I would not be writing this as a college-educated adult if he hadn't had a union pension that kicked in on disability.) I know precisely one per…

Huh. My neighbor growing up was an electrician. By his 40's he struck out on his own with his own company. Made way more money than my family that was doing white collar office jobs.

Dude spent his 50's retired on some boat.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#72

Post by kortilla »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #33

The last 50 years of American prosperity was built primarily on the exploitation of labor as unions declined and Capital starting consuming an outsized amount of Labor’s productivity (with a fair amount of help from globalization efforts). Until the scales tip (and there are signs we’re headed there) and labor has more power with stronger unions, people should not expect workers to take garbage jobs (even in trades w…

> The last 50 years of American prosperity was built primarily on the exploitation of labor as unions declined and Capital starting consuming an outsized amount of Labor’s productivity

This is a really lazy analysis that ignores all of the productivity gains that came from automation and information technology. People who put together cars didn’t start making less money, they got replaced by robots.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#73

Post by laingc »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #59
laingc wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Zealand does exactly this, and I’m of two minds on it. On the one hand, it seems easy to say that if you don’t have enough workers, you’ve got to raise your price - it’s a free market, right? Except it’s not. NZ has a very generous welfare system (compared to its very small GDP) and this means that being un- or under-employed is a viable option. On the other hand, the jobs also bring in a lot of money for the isl…

> We already have a cost of living crisis, and raising the price of fruit and vegetables by removing these visas for seasonal workers seems like it would hurt everyone without helping anyone in particular. It helps local labor sellers to be in higher demand and hence negotiate higher prices who may have taken the option to pick fruit and vegetables.

I understand that argument, but the very high minimum wage and availability of state support means that in practice there is no market-clearing price for this labour. New Zealanders simply don’t want to do these jobs.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#74

Post by endisneigh »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #68
rufus_foreman wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing with housing. There is no housing shortage, there are just people who aren't willing to pay the market rate for housing. Up your price that you are willing to pay and you will have housing. If you can't pay the market rate for housing, do not be surprised when you do not have housing. Basic economics.

This ignores regulatory barriers that impact costs. If it costs 500k to permit and inspect a house, you can absolutely complain

Where does it cost 500k for a housing permit?

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#75

Post by pyuser583 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #39
kixiQu wrote: post #16

My parents met when they were both working construction. My mom was a surveyor and a laborer at various times; she helped get my dad into the union (Philly) and he was a carpenter. My mom stopped it to raise me and my sibling; my dad did it until it entirely broke his body. (I would not be writing this as a college-educated adult if he hadn't had a union pension that kicked in on disability.) I know precisely one per…

Here in Germany about 50% of high school graduates go into a traditional vocational program, many of which are crafts. Electrical work, the car industry, machinery, carpentry, woodwork and so forth. My family (with me being the first exception) is all blue collar and I understand that construction is uniquely taxing physically but from my parents and people younger I've never heard horror stories about lost fingers o…

I worked in a job that employed lots of disabled blue collar workers.

It’s the joints: bad knees, bad backs.

It’s not like back in the day where you get missing fingers. That’s really rare.

But the steady grind of lifting, carrying, lifting, carrying, again and again destroys the joints.

That’s harder to regulate away.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#76

Post by webwanderings »

All these professionals from vocational fields are horribly expensive in America. And then there are articles like these claiming they don't make money. BS. America has no public/private vocational school/training culture. People don't even teach each other unless you are born into the family of craftsman.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#77

Post by prawn »

anamax wrote: post #69
prawn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that discount its relevance? It just says that he faced discrimination. And why would a majority of Hispanic-dominant companies mean that the remainder wouldn’t discriminate? Presumably it’s something he raised as a challenge when interviewed.

Did he say that he faced discrimination by whites? As to your assumption that Hispanics don't discriminate, you haven't spent much time with them. (They aren't as racist as Indians or Chinese, but that's a low bar.)

Where did I assume that Hispanics don’t discriminate?! I think every group would have a tendency to. I’m just saying that I don’t see where it’s relevant which group did, just that he faced discrimination and that it would be a relevant part of the “challenges” backstory.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#79

Post by neither_color »

analog31 wrote: post #57
kixiQu wrote: post #16

My parents met when they were both working construction. My mom was a surveyor and a laborer at various times; she helped get my dad into the union (Philly) and he was a carpenter. My mom stopped it to raise me and my sibling; my dad did it until it entirely broke his body. (I would not be writing this as a college-educated adult if he hadn't had a union pension that kicked in on disability.) I know precisely one per…

In addition to the inherent physical nature of the work, another problem is working for small businesses that fly under the radar of OSHA and other regulations. Also, family owned businesses don't have a "normal" career advancement process unless you belong to the family. When people come to work on my house, I've noticed that everybody who is around my age (58) is hobbling and broken.

On the other hand the family sized ones do jobs that aren't economically viable for a large unionized one because of too much overhead. The difference between a large construction company and a small one remodeling your home can be in the five figures. I think it's not fair to say that a family one lacks career advancement, it's like saying that a small web development shop doesn't have the same career advancement opportunities as Microsoft. It doesn't mean that working for a small shop is a dead end job. In reality an experienced tradesman is always in high demand by larger firms or has the ability to be an independent contractor, regardless of where he started. In large cities a licensed plumber or electrician can make six figures and trying to get them to come out to your house can take weeks because they're so busy. The independent nature of the work makes it very resistant to national franchises, and different start ups have tried to make "uber-like" services for contracting tradesmen, Amazon has tried upselling "pro" installation services but nobody's been able to really centralize it yet.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#80

Post by phaedrus »

blackgirldev wrote: post #53
fasteddie31003 wrote: post #4

If software engineering and carpentry paid the same, I'd be a carpenter.

Ha. I joined the Navy in the 90s and when I got out I tried to get into auto mechanic school. They wanted me to sign up for an apprenticeship at a car dealership and were happy to take my tuition money. But no one would allow me (female) to apprentice. They would say "sure...wait a bit for a start date" then I would call to ask when to come in and they would always have given the spot to a male student. Even after ge…

Huh. That is an interesting point about carpentry not being as easy to self-teach. I don't think it's entirely impossible to do so, the Youtuber Mr. Chickadee being a counter-example: he's mentioned in interviews learning techniques from books, such as Japanese joinery.

But then if you watch channels like Essential Craftsman it's clear there's a great deal of know-how that has to be passed on by someone who knows the trade. Stuff about how to work efficiently and tricks you wouldn't think of. Even if it were in a book or videos exist, you don't necessarily know to go looking for it.

It is definitely possible to self-teach auto repair. I did, out of necessity. Things you try either work or they don't, but there's logical reasons for it that can be derived from first principles.

However the computer is in a class of its own when it comes to self-teaching. Instant feedback and infinite capacity for experimentation. Carpentry doesn't have a built-in objective critic like that. Auto-repair is somewhere in between.

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