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

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

#251

Post by eddsh1994 »

peruvian wrote: post #212
eddsh1994 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why Unions exist, no? Personally I sometimes wonder if I'd have enjoyed plumbing water more than plumbing code as I'd be meeting more people face to face, physically active, and it can get surprisingly complex (Berkeley, I think, offers a postgrad cert in plumbing buildings like sky scrapers which I saw advertised the other day)

Tech people always say this but forget that being a plumber means being on their knees wading thru poop water and likely being unable to work when you reach a certain, fairly young age. I get it, trades are important, but let's not glamorize them.

I have done far worse than wade through poop water on my knees when I worked as a teenager on a paintball site / as a rifleman in the army! But to each their own :)

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

#252

Post by jeffrallen »

joecot wrote: post #96
Avshalom wrote: post #36

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 aggressivel…

I'm a millennial. First we were told that we needed the college degree for a job. Any degree would do. So everyone went and got a college degree, and since so many people had it it wasn't a status symbol anymore, so that wasn't enough to get a good middle class job. And then a bunch of people were told they shouldn't have gotten those degrees and they were worthless. Then we were told to go into STEM. So lots of peop…

The nurses start families and won't work night shifts anymore.

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

#253

Post by bluedino »

greatpostman wrote: post #206
bluedino wrote: post #139

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…

25/30 hr is not great. Hate to tell you

It's relative

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

#254

Post by tw98521358 »

fleddr wrote: post #222

If I had to do it all over again, I'd be a plumber. You're not stationary, you're on the move and your day has variety. You spend a lot of time in the physical world and meet lots of people. Your work might at times be smelly but is rewarding in a very direct way. You helped solve a tangible problem and your customers are grateful for it. The range of problems to solve is large, and if you widen your skills, you can…

Yeah but could your body handle 30+ years as a plumber? It’s hard physically work, shit hours and uncompensated commutes. You are literally covered in poop some days and working in the wet/cold others. It’s only a good gig once you own your own firm

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

#255

Post by fleddr »

SideQuark wrote: post #99
Ancalagon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d be surprised. Sometimes quality of life is better spent not working when you can lean on family and friends Or your own small retirement fund. Not saying someone’s life choices are right or wrong one way or the other in this case. I’m very grateful for my position but would be lying if I didn’t say I day dreamt occasionally about quitting work and living like a backpacker.

>Sometimes quality of life is better spent not working when you can lean on family and friends Or your own small retirement fund. And then when enough do, and the result becomes a lifetime of un/under-employment, then they want the retirements or lives of those before or around them, who do you think will pick up the slack? Sure, quit and be a backpacker. Doing it a while is fun, probably even healthy, but a lifetime…

Pretty funny thing to say on HN, which consists of people in the industry of automating things.

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

#257

Post by tw98521358 »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #128
Ancalagon wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% is the difference between $100k and $70k. That's a lot of money...

Well relatively speaking your lifestyle isn't likely going to change dramatically between those two incomes. In the US the difference is several hundred percent.

It’s basically double discretionary spending

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

#258

Post by floor2 »

t-writescode wrote: post #205
rcme wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's not that many jobs that pay that much around here. Hiring movers to pack your stuff and move it across the country costs a few thousand dollars, and it's never been easier to rent an apartment via online showings. Your competition is a lot broader than your immediate geographic area.

This is a few thousand dollars when something like half the nation can’t afford a $500 surprise bill, right?

That much-repeated factoid is the result of sloppy, clickbait reporting of a lousy survey.

People were asked "If you had a sudden $500 expense, how would you pay for it?" with options like ["cash", "checking account", "credit card", "pay-day loan", "borrow from family"] and unsurprisingly many people said "credit card". This then got repeated and reported as "Americans can't pay $500 without going into debt".

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

#259

Post by MrFantastic »

megaman821 wrote: post #114
bryanlarsen wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You pay $200/hr for the work you see onsite. What you don't see is overhead, drive time to site and back to HQ and because plumbers aren't guaranteed to work 40 hours a week.

If there is no work, the plumbers don't get paid.

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

#260

Post by WalterBright »

falcolas wrote: post #118
UncleMeat wrote: post #33

"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'm not sure how your body parts wear out.

Football players ruin their bodies through accumulated injuries, not wearing their bodies out.

Do athletes wear their bodies out? I've never heard of that. How does doing plumbing/electricioning wear your body out?

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