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The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z

npr.org

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Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z

#31

Post by moe091 »

Eumenes wrote: post #23
lemoncookiechip wrote: post #19

It's almost as if people are less willing to work jobs that actively harm their long-term physical health (back-breaking jobs) or those harmful for their mental health (generally ones face to face with customers, customer support or high stress jobs), for a relatively small wage to said job's demands and lasting effects.

Staring at a computer screen all day, interacting with people exclusively on video chat is good for mental and physical health? Plumbers and carpenters can earn a high wage, with no college debt, and often get a union job. Some of my best friends from high school went into the trades, and owned a nice home before most of our high school class was graduating from college.

If it's such a good deal they should have no problem finding plenty of employees for those jobs. If Gen Z is opposed to those kind of working conditions for some reason, then it's just a matter of supply and demand - like how trash collectors get paid a lot for a relatively low-skilled labor job, because not many people want to deal with trash all day. Whether we share the same aversion Gen Z does for certain types of jobs is irrelevant, nobody gets to be the arbiter of what peoples preferences are

Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z

#32

Post by abeppu »

While the trend they're talking about may be real, the way they provide evidence for it is sloppy.

> The number of young people seeking technical jobs — like plumbing, building and electrical work — dropped by 49% in 2022 compared to 2020, according to data from online recruiting platform Handshake shared with NPR.

> Researchers from Handshake tracked how the number of applications for technical roles vs. the number of job postings has changed over the last two years.

> While postings for those roles — automotive technicians, equipment installers and respiratory therapists, to name a few — saw about 10 applications each in 2020, they got about five per posting in 2022.

I.e. the evidence is in terms of applications per job posting, but the claim is about the number people seeking jobs. These are not the same. If it's understood that it's a job-seekers market, the same number of job seekers in 2022 could reasonably each have applied to half as many positions each, and be pickier about which postings they pursue.

Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z

#33

Post by UncleMeat »

"We need more tradespeople" seems to be an evergreen news article.

My brother in law is an electrician. He is paid alright, enough to live on. But there are HUGE downsides. He does not receive health insurance. He does not get paid vacation. In order to match decent white-collar pay, he needs to work overtime. His company pushes hard to get jobs finished fast, causing people to cut safety corners. Many of his coworkers have been badly (in one case, nearly fatally) injured on the job. There are no meaningful raises.

It isn't a bad career, but there are major reasons why it would be unattractive.

Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z

#35

Post by Ancalagon »

malandrew wrote: post #8
Ancalagon wrote: post #4

Same labor shortage as everywhere that the government likes to pretend doesn't exist. 10 million working-age men can't or won't work. Of the ones willing to work, almost none want to spend their time learning skills for back-breaking, barely-middle class skills jobs which they'll be forced to retire from at 55 because their knees give out. Same answer for the shortage as everywhere that the economists don't want to h…

I’ve done both kinds of work on my own home. Calling it back breaking is pure hyperbole. Is it physical, certainly. But it’s something you can easily do until you’re 50 without issue and between 40 to 50, you can start taking apprentices that do the taxes that benefit from youth. Of the plumbers and carpenters I’ve hired, they are all in no worse shape than other adults their age. I sit at a computer all day and it’s…

Doing one-off projects on your own home is not equivalent to being a full time roofer or tile-layer, or even plumber or auto tech where you are constantly working on your back, hands, and knees.

I have my own home too and the times I’ve done my own plumbing work were hard. And that’s one of the physically-speaking easier jobs, never mind Roofing, I wouldn’t last a week.

Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z

#36

Post by Avshalom »

A lot of these threads devolve into "have you tried paying more" but I'd also like to highlight "have you actually tried telling Gen Z that". I'm 35, from basically as early as I can remember until sophmore year of college I was told constantly by every adult (and I mean every adult not just the ones that had degrees) in my life to go to college, get a degree, any degree. So yeah I went to college. It was aggressively marketed to me for over a decade and that affected my aspirations.

Doesn't help either I'm sure that unions, the organizations willing/capable of marketing-to, teaching/training people and giving them some sense of camaraderie, have been attacked for decades as being variously inefficient to straight evil.

Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z

#37

Post by berkle4455 »

modoc wrote: post #27
lemoncookiechip wrote: post #19

It's almost as if people are less willing to work jobs that actively harm their long-term physical health (back-breaking jobs) or those harmful for their mental health (generally ones face to face with customers, customer support or high stress jobs), for a relatively small wage to said job's demands and lasting effects.

Where are you finding small wage plumbers or carpenters? All the trades here (plumbing, electrical, HVAC, carpentry (perhaps more on the finish side vs framing though) are extremely expensive, with hourly rates between $80-$150/hour. (source - did a lot of renovations on my house, and my BIL is an electrician).

Wages of an employee versus hourly labor rates a customer pays are vastly different things.

Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z

#39

Post by UncleMeat »

modoc wrote: post #27
lemoncookiechip wrote: post #19

It's almost as if people are less willing to work jobs that actively harm their long-term physical health (back-breaking jobs) or those harmful for their mental health (generally ones face to face with customers, customer support or high stress jobs), for a relatively small wage to said job's demands and lasting effects.

Where are you finding small wage plumbers or carpenters? All the trades here (plumbing, electrical, HVAC, carpentry (perhaps more on the finish side vs framing though) are extremely expensive, with hourly rates between $80-$150/hour. (source - did a lot of renovations on my house, and my BIL is an electrician).

The laborer isn't seeing 100% of that bill.

Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z

#40

Post by __derek__ »

That "Handshake" platform went from 10 applications per role in 2020 to 5 applications per role in 2022, but the number of roles increased. Based on the stats provided, this article just seems like another lamentation that labor has made gains.

It's also not clear that this platform is representative of the market. I've never heard of it before, but it bills itself as "The #1 way college students get hired" which seems questionable.

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