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Any former software developers here who transitioned to plumbing/electrician/etc? If so, what did the steps look like?
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The median income for a plumber is $50k, only 10% make above $91k. https://insights.workwave.com/industry/plumbing-electrical/p... 6-figure incomes for plumbers are rare.
Where is all the money people paying tradespeople going? If I need any plumbing work done it costs me $200 an hour or more. Even with overhead and expenses, 10 hours a week gets you more than $50k a year. Twenty years ago my grandfather was a marine plumber and made $200k a year. How many apprentices and part-time plumber are in these datasets?
Also, you're probably paying the company which manages the plumbers, of which the plumbers don't directly earn that.
If you're hiring a plumber directly, I'd assume it's a more experienced one running their own business. In addition to charging you $200/hr for the work, they're probably doing their accounting and business management, billing, ordering parts and equipment, replacing tools, and communicating with clients.
I could see that only resulting in 10-20 billable hours per week.
Also, if many of their jobs are paid in cash, it's possible there's a significant amount that is unreported to the agencies generating these statistics.
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This isn't the case for all trades people. It might be a bad area or a bad employer. I've know trades folks who are electricians, plumbers, carpenters, work in road construction, etc. They typically work reasonable hours, have medical, and are paid at or above the median income for where they live. They didn't rack up debt getting into this either. This is not a bad deal for many people.
It might be a bad area. There aren't better employers in the area. He knows he is being abused. He used to live and work as an electrician in another country where he was treated considerably better. He spends his days wiring new homes that sell for 1.5M+ and gets treated like crap. Moving is unfortunately not an option because my sister's career is very location-dependent. "Well if you aren't in one of the good area…
Probably a big caveat exists for businesses that get into contract bidding, as that’s different.
There’s 1x old plumber in my town who does honest and on time work and he’s a spry 70 year old. And charges a hefty but honest hourly rate given the service. There’s no plumbers behind him.
Whenever Ive thought I might not make it in tech, a trade and running a business on it was the backup plan.
*edit the nuances I’ve seen that are worth mentioning is if you’re not in that owner/operator role, the work can get bad. Know enough friends who:
- slipped in a construction site moonlighting a demolition job and now limping and can’t afford a doctor.
- Electricians who got their in around a strict union hierarchy but also zapped themselves pretty bad early on.
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If retail stores are making record breaking profits, why are service workers paid so little? If medical costs are so high, why aren't nurses and nurse aids making more? It's not rocket science. People aren't getting paid for the value of their labor, and productivity has rocketed up while wages have stagnated for decades. Your plumber charges 200 an hour and doesn't make anywhere near that much, because they work for…
> plumber charges 200 an hour and doesn't make anywhere near that much, because they work for a company who profits massively off their labor and exploits him as far as the law and supply and demand will allow Do most plumbers responding to house calls work for an employer? There aren't many economies of scale in that work.
Being an independent plumber means handling: marketing, networking, customer service, etc, plus plumbing. Like any other freelance position it's not easy to break in and get enough work to live. And we're not in the days of people just opening the Yellow Pages and calling a random plumber. Now it's a labyrinth of competing search engine results, yelp reviews, HomeAdvisor references, etc.
Some people will take the time to find an independent plumber. Most people call RotoRooter or whatever company has advertised the most in their area. The plumbers, electricians, handymen I call are all independent, but they're also old, at the end of their careers, having a set of regulars they could take with them going independent, and having saved a bunch of money because they were getting paid fair wages in their prime. There are economies of scale in the skilled trades, they're just not the trades themselves.
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I think this is actually one of those predictions that might not turn out the way you think. Economies are all about supply and demand, not how long or complicated the job title is. The government is increasingly ignoring the problem, the higher-education-industrial-complex is grabbing workers that would otherwise go into the trades, mass-importation of unskilled labor is slowing down as it becomes more of a politica…
Economies are about supply and demand. But wages are not directly tied to the demand for the trades. Wages are controlled by the bosses. Even if the price of wiring up a new home goes up, I would not expect the bulk of that increase to be reflected in the wages of the electricians (at least in the US).
I was working for an aerospace manufacturer for a while. We were getting 40/50 year old apprentices for the trades, guys coming off the production floor. Electricians, millwrights, CNC machinists... we couldn't find enough of them. I get it. Nobody wants to stand in front of a machine (or 5-6 machines) for 10 hours a day. Nobody wants to be in a 90 degree factory all day. Nobody wants to work 2nd or 3rd shifts. The p…
I'm curious, has your employer tried paying more? There are a fair few desk jobs that pay $25-30/hr, and it's entirely possible that people are trading job stability for something that isn't so physically demanding.
However, our Seattle location has that problem. It was almost closed down because of competition.
edit: can't reply to the person who replied below, but if you have a contract to sell parts to a company you can't just increase your worker pay to whatever you want and have it be sustainable.
"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 coworke…
> It isn't a bad career But there is a finite end to the career - when your body gives out. That's the biggest problem with the trades, you're selling your health and body. And eventually the body parts will wear out, on a schedule decided as much by genetics as how you live.
I do remote software work from a very picturesque but somewhat remote coastal village in Sweden that has been largely left behind by urbanisation. My impression is that there's no reluctance to go into these lines of work for young local people here. I imagine it would be the same in the US. In the cities where there are more office work opportunities for young people, even without any qualifications to speak of: it…
Even in this thread there are people contemplating switching to trades and asking how to even start.
"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 coworke…
> His company pushes hard to get jobs finished fast, causing people to cut safety corners Man, this bothers me in software, where physical human safety isn't even on the line. I can't even imagine dealing with that when somebody could actually die.