The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by jxramos » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 10:21 PM UTC

nullsense wrote: post #220

SoftTalker wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New home/residential wiring jobs are basically the entry point for electricians. It's about as mindless and simple as it gets. I'm not sure what the licensing requirements are but those are the sorts of jobs that an electrical contractor puts their new/junior people on.

I know nothing about the industry, but out of curiosity... what are considered the more interesting jobs?

commercial sites are supposed to be good; I know a commercial electrician and he'd talk about the many tech company headquarters and new buildings he and his team would wire up and do all the equipment for. This includes outlets, infrastructure like AC and any special equipment like fire alarms smoke detectors, any everything in between. He'd say working for government jobs were too slow, they took forever to complete, it was always more lucrative to go for private industry large construction sites like new malls, big buildings with large square feet footprints. Basically commercial real estate stuff.

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

#342

Post by selfmodruntime » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 10:23 PM UTC

digianarchist wrote: post #340

I remember back when I was 17 in 2004, I applied for an apprenticeship to work at Jaguar-Land Rover as an Electrical Engineering Technician. I turned up to the interview to be told that there were 2 welding apprenticeships left and those would be filled from the 150+ candidates that turned up. Without an apprenticeship you couldn't study a trade at college. You couldn't get an apprenticeship unless you knew someone t…

The latter is the exact problem in Germany as well. You work full time in your apprenticeship, sometimes earning less than 700€ a month.

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

#343

Post by vsareto » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 10:23 PM UTC

dionidium wrote: post #174

joecot wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> First we were told that we needed the college degree for a job. Any degree would do. Something strange is happening here that I can't quite understand. Jokes about English majors asking if you want fries with that are way older than me and I first started college in 1999. Yes, I heard a persistent low rumbling of "go to college," but the idea that "any degree would do" is alien to me. Of course I knew that some maj…

If you had bad grades or your parents thought you didn't have a lot of potential, you probably got the "any degree would do" talk over "go into this hard STEM degree"

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

#344

Post by XorNot » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 10:23 PM UTC

Avshalom wrote: post #231

dionidium wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First we were told that we needed the college degree for a job. Any degree would do. Something strange is happening here that I can't quite understand. Jokes about English majors asking if you want fries with that are way older than me and I first started college in 1999. Yes, I heard a persistent low rumbling of "go to college," but the idea that "any degree would do" is alien to me. Of course I knew that some maj…

>> Jokes about English majors asking if you want fries Sure but that never stopped anyone from pulling out BLS statistics showing life-time earning potential of an BA in english vs a highschool diploma. But the point of bringing up "any degree" isn't that any student thought (or any guidance counselor said) that underwater basket weaving and electrical engineering had the same potential it's that we were told to go t…

On an adjacent note, I'm really tired of the "underwater basket weaving" short hand being used. There's either a real degree you think is useless (which the above thread notes doesn't look nearly so useless by statistics) or there's not.

There's a fairly long history of people inventing what they think is taught at colleges as a straw man to then criticize them in some way and it doesn't contribute to anything for the usual reasons a fallacy doesn't.

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

#345

Post by pleb_nz » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 10:23 PM UTC

dimator wrote: post #100

oceanplexian wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fitting pipes together is not "back breaking". We're not talking about framing or roofing, in the contracting world plumbing is a light duty skilled trade that anyone with half a brain can earn a 6-figure income on. If you take care of yourself and wear protective equipment, you won't have a problem with your knees in middle age. There's no "forced retirement", someone working as an independent contractor for 25 year…

Older generation complains about newer generation's work ethic and goals, news at 11. Seriously, this has been done since forever, and it's such a tired trope. And why the hell shouldn't they want to be influencers? They're responding to the world they've been handed. Why is that different than "I want to be an NBA player", or rock and roll singer before that, or baseball player before that? Gen Z will be just fine,…

Generations isnt even real. People change year on year little by little not once in 20 years. It's a gradual shift not some shift that happens new years eve one year.

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

#346

Post by prottog » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 10:24 PM UTC

cwkoss wrote: post #324

prottog wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a similar disconnect in expectations of outcomes. The same days when people "wanted" overtime were the days where people expected to get ahead by busting their asses; sure, you could work short hours, play with your kids, have time to develop a hobby, but then you wouldn't become wealthy. That option is still there today, to work only enough to sustain oneself at a lowered standard. But it seems that there is…

The ratio of power between labor and capital has swung hard toward capital over the past 30 years. I think the number of people who become "wealthy" due to salary income alone is probably small and shrinking. You used to be able to buy a house in 12 months instead of 18 months if you worked overtime. Todays economics make it so working overtime lets you buy a house in 13 years instead of 17 years.

> You used to be able to buy a house in 12 months instead of 18 months if you worked overtime. Todays economics make it so working overtime lets you buy a house in 13 years instead of 17 years.

Actually, if 50 years ago you used to be able to pay for a house in 18 months, today you should be able to pay for a house in ~30 months: https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-inco.... You're thinking of a time that didn't exist, perhaps outside of when people were granted plots of land and built their own houses on it.

Blame the Fed and idiotic policies at every level for that, anyway; the economics of housing is totally skewed by artificial scarcity on one hand and asset inflation on the other.

I don't disagree that capital has more power now due to the effects of technology, but I also believe that culture has been shaping away from the idea that we are masters of our fate; both due to technology, which becomes increasingly harder for laypeople to understand as it gets more advanced, and regulation forced by that technological advance, where the universe of economic activity one can engage in without needing the state's permission is getting smaller and smaller. Not to mention all the effects that social media has on envy.

Perhaps I sound like I'm repeating the age-old mantra of the old complaining that the young are ruining the country ;-) you decide.

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

#347

Post by rco8786 » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 10:26 PM UTC

prottog wrote: post #346

cwkoss wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ratio of power between labor and capital has swung hard toward capital over the past 30 years. I think the number of people who become "wealthy" due to salary income alone is probably small and shrinking. You used to be able to buy a house in 12 months instead of 18 months if you worked overtime. Todays economics make it so working overtime lets you buy a house in 13 years instead of 17 years.

> You used to be able to buy a house in 12 months instead of 18 months if you worked overtime. Todays economics make it so working overtime lets you buy a house in 13 years instead of 17 years. Actually, if 50 years ago you used to be able to pay for a house in 18 months, today you should be able to pay for a house in ~30 months: https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-inco... . You're thinking of a t…

Sounds like you're blaming the fed and idiotic policies...all of which were put in place by old people. ;-)

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

#348

Post by anonreeeeplor » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 10:27 PM UTC

I would love some of the journalists who write these article to volunteer to take these jobs by quitting and becoming plumbers.

Why don’t they do it? Because sitting in a nice cozy chair and having opinions backed by nothing is much higher social status.

It’s like this constant gas lighting from elite sources:

“Hey can’t buy a house? How about being knee deep in toilets all day and having zero respect in society.”

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

#349

Post by XorNot » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 10:27 PM UTC

welshwelsh wrote: post #233

joecot wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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 This makes it sound like a degree is worth less today than it was in the past, which is not true. The income and wealth gap between college degree holders and non-degree holders is higher than at any point in history, and it grows bigger very year. Most degrees have an unemployment rate of about 5-6%.…

> it's difficult to land a profitable role doing research/pure science, especially if you don't have a PhD

Honestly I'd modify this to say that unless your Ph. D is in physics, mathematics (and you're willing to go into finance) or data science... you're not going to be that much better off.

And the time you spend out of industry you'll never make back. Take a CS degree, go work for any of the big ones and get "senior" next to your name as soon as possible.

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

#350

Post by nradov » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 10:28 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #262

falcolas wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the wear-and-tear on your brain from an office job will always be significantly lower (and thus remain a viable job for much longer) than a job in the figurative or literal trenches.

Sitting in a chair all day is not good for your health long term.

Right, but even when you're in poor health from sitting in a chair all day you can keep sitting in that chair and doing the same work. Whereas if you're a skilled trades worker and break your back by falling off a ladder then you can't work at all. So the downside risk is more severe.