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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

#351

Post by tayo42 »

asdff wrote: post #302
tayo42 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The target worker in this case is people in Gen z? They're young out of school and own nothing. It doesn't cost anything to move in that case. I moved across the country with a suit case. My only cost was the plane ticket

So that didn't cost you nothing then. Then what did you do when you got off the plane? Presumably you paid a security deposit for an apartment and didn't just camp on BLM land. For someone with no credit history, a landlord might ask for 4 months rent as a deposit these days.

i moved into someones spare room

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

#352

Post by prottog »

rco8786 wrote: post #335
prottog wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where GP's old employer was located, but it sounds like it's in a low cost-of-living area, the kind where homes can be had for under $100k. Earn $50-60k a year, pay off your house in maybe ten years instead of thirty, save a little each month and invest and let it compound over time; at the end you could have enough for a comfortable retirement and maybe even have some left over to hand down to your chil…

Certainly nobody can reasonably conclude that "working long hours to live a basic life in an extremely low cost of living area" is "wealthy". We can all agree that we have different definitions of wealthy. But I think we can also all agree that your description of that life, which is maybe "well-lived", is not one of wealth in the context of this discussion. It is certainly not an "ass-busting outcome".

OK, I grant that the life I described is perhaps not aspirational for anybody born and raised in a first-world country in the last 30 years or so. (I know many from other backgrounds whose idea of unimaginable wealth is exactly that.) But if it's not an ass-busting outcome, would you say it's a middling outcome? Or the most minimal outcome that anyone should have, regardless of how hard they work?

What makes you say that this middle-class life where you own your home free and clear and have time and money for the occasional indulgences of life is a "basic" one? In other words, why is your bar calibrated so high?

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

#353

Post by rightbyte »

WalterBright wrote: post #260
falcolas wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> How does doing plumbing/electricioning wear your body out?

Electrictions can work over their head with screw drivers for weeks at an end. There are plenty of bad working positions for their body.

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

#354

Post by notch656c »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #160
Ekaros wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless there is massive population growth. Single older person can employ only so many juniors. Or other older people have to exit the market.

It's like a MLM spread across generations of workers. You recruit two workers and they recruit two workers each and then they recruit two workers each.... You even get to be your own {Personal Pronoun}Boss!

If you spend 2/3 of your career as one of the 2 underlings it's not MLM. Body is dunzo by say 50 for trades, which means you get 30 years as a tradesman and 15 years employing two tradesman. Retire at 65.

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

#355

Post by standardUser »

bubblematrix wrote: post #10
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…

Independent plumbers/local plumbing businesses can easily earn $1,000/day with 2-3 service calls. Not sure how universal healthcare, PTO, immigration, and more pay have to do with this. Edit: Thank you for all the downvotes for me calling out the weird correlation between tech benefits/politics and plumber skill-shortage + high-reward wages. Your wokeism will forever benefit society.

How are you "not sure" what healthcare and independent workers have to do with each other?

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

#356

Post by Rapzid »

floor2 wrote: post #258
t-writescode wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Yeah, would like to see the source of that. My generation puts everything on rewards cards even if they have no debt; so of course $500 is going on a card first lol.

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

#357

Post by prottog »

pleb_nz wrote: post #345
dimator wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The pace of change quickens due to technology enabling our interconnected world today.

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

#358

Post by LAC-Tech »

WalterBright wrote: post #260
falcolas wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Programmers get RSI from typing too much. You think tradesman can't get worse?

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

#360

Post by meetingthrower »

Man, I'm in PE buying these companies and if you want to get rich in America be competent in skilled trades. If you have a little bit of management skill it is very doable. I've been offering 40 year old high school grads $30M in cash for their companies (and they would get that much again as we are doing rollups and they maintain significant equity.)

What is amazing is that these guys just do this again and again. You want to know who has boats and planes? These guys!!! Richer than I'll ever be.

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