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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

#581

Post by viraptor »

ckvjdonee wrote: post #554
viraptor wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like it's a weird situation when the pay is low, but there is overtime available and there's pressure to work fast. Why wouldn't a company raise prices, increase pay and slow down if there's more than a standard day of work available and customers ready/waiting? Is it more of industry issue or that specific company issue then?

Why is a market behaving in an efficient manner a weird situation to you? Lower prices for consumers and faster job completion is good for everyone. Use regulation to fix the safety issues and protect workers from exploitation. Low barrier to entry means if prices rise, more people join the industry and drive prices down again. When overtime and overworking becomes too much, people exit or don't join and prices rise.

In practice I see difference in prices between local companies and there are reasons to not go for the cheapest price. It doesn't make market inefficient if you say you do a better job and will charge more than competition. Some people won't choose you, but then it's about setting the correct pricing/demand point. If there's more demand than can be fulfilled, the prices can raise - that's as market-efficient as it gets.

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

#582

Post by MarkMarine »

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…

If we have a free market, or any functioning market for labor, pay more is the answer right?

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

#583

Post by JamesBarney »

crazygringo wrote: post #534
JamesBarney wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the "you could be an archeologist or a historian" was such obvious bullshit that I can't believe any adult could say this with a straight face." They always listed the jobs you could have with a degree instead of the jobs you would have with a degree. My wife got a GIS degree. They told her about all the map making jobs. They didn't say 95% of these jobs were oil and gas.

I'm not really sure what you're talking about... a friend of mine studied archaeology in college and wound up starting her career in the curation department of a major museum. Another studied history and wound up becoming a tenure-track history professor. Now granted they both worked crazy hard in school, but the idea that it's "obvious bullshit" isn't true at all. Archaeologists and historians are real jobs that exi…

There are 500 NBA players, and another 500 minor league players and 5000 practicing archaeologists. So it's not too far off.

I have 1 friends who is tenure track (stem which is significantly easier) but 14-15 who got PhDs weren't able to find tenure track position. But two friend started an internationally acclaimed bands. And another who is an internationally published author.

So sure these jobs exist but archaeologist and historian are probably closer to rock star or NBA player than they are accountant or developer.

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

#584

Post by bluejayello »

rednerrus wrote: post #389
beyond_based wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m going to be deadass with you brother. We don’t have a functioning society, we have an immigration labor camp.

I'm interested in what types of media you consume that's helped to shape your worldview. The idea that living in an industrialized nation in 2023 isn't living in a functional society, seems very foreign to me. Which nation and which time period would you choose to live in over an industrialized nation in 2023?

I'd choose stone-age Europe. Die as a tribal warlord or die trying, that's life actually worth living. Being a neutered and fake modern human being even with a lot of printer money is still nothing.

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

#585

Post by Manuel_D »

SergeAx wrote: post #545
pwarner wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ended up paying "professionals" to install some vinyl flooring in my house. They were making like 5 of the top 10 mistakes from the YouTube video I had watched the night before. I had to correct them, which was awkward since they had been installing floors for 15 years, supposedly... YouTube changes things for sure, although I am unsure if that's the cause of fewer folks going into the trades. Demand over all seems…

How can you be sure that the YouTube is right and real life professionals are not? Making money on YouTube ad revenue share is quite popular thing today, and no one verifies what is uploaded there, unless it is a copyrighted material.

It obviously depends on the field. But if the YouTube video explains clearly why X technique is sub par, and demonstrates the failure mode I'd believe it over a tradesperson. Say you see your mechanic tighten the nuts on your wheel hub in a circular pattern instead of a star pattern. Would you point this out?

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

#586

Post by chrisdhoover »

mfer wrote: post #95
ogre_battle wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it might be a bad area or a bad employer. Outside of big cities, there may not be enough demand, esp. consistent demand, to justify good pay and bennies. My uncle is a welder, has a lot of specializations including some underwater stuff. No shortage of offers... for 6 weeks of work in nowhere-ville, often requiring you to supply your own transport and housing. 3 months in FL, 6 months in NC, 8 weeks in GA. And they…

> Outside of big cities, there may not be enough demand, esp. consistent demand, to justify good pay and bennies. I guess that depends how far outside cities. In the suburbs there is demand. There is a shortage of trades and many trades folks are older in age. When they retire there isn't the back fill behind them. And all of this is happening as the population is growing.

I’m reading the population is shrinking. Isn’t the US below replacement rate? Certainly Europe is. I think immigration is masking that kids these days are not have kids these days

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

#587

Post by acdha »

dnissley wrote: post #539
sobkas wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He should start buying some cheap tools of his own (to start with) and do weekend/night jobs for himself. If he's working on 1.5m homes I guarantee you there are a ton of homeowners who need electrical jobs done. Get on Yelp, ask his customers to leave good reviews, and build a business. > There are a ton of niches and other opportunities. For example being available during late hours. In anything like a large or m…

How would they even know? Assuming they keep quiet about it

This part:

> Get on Yelp, ask his customers to leave good reviews, and build a business.

You can’t do a good business without leaving visible traces - permits, customers, suppliers, etc. all provide ways for information to leak. If his employer is exploitative, he has above average odds of correctly fearing retribution and depending on the area that could mean unemployment. It’s not exactly uncommon for companies to discretely agree not to hire certain people.

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

#588

Post by chrisdhoover »

Brybry wrote: post #431
mfer wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Outside of big cities, there may not be enough demand, esp. consistent demand, to justify good pay and bennies. I guess that depends how far outside cities. In the suburbs there is demand. There is a shortage of trades and many trades folks are older in age. When they retire there isn't the back fill behind them. And all of this is happening as the population is growing.

US population growth is mostly flat, all the growth is from immigration.[1][2] And those people are filling trade skill jobs. [3] > More than one-third of construction laborers (686,000 workers), at least 30 percent of carpenters (382,000 workers), and 45 percent of painters and paperhangers (264,000 workers) are immigrants. And without them the population long term would decrease (which is obvious from the low ferti…

True that. Every job site I go to is filled with hardworking Mexicans and Central Americans.

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

#589

Post by fires10 »

sobkas wrote: post #493
xenadu02 wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He should start buying some cheap tools of his own (to start with) and do weekend/night jobs for himself. If he's working on 1.5m homes I guarantee you there are a ton of homeowners who need electrical jobs done. Get on Yelp, ask his customers to leave good reviews, and build a business. There are a ton of niches and other opportunities. For example being available during late hours. In anything like a large or mediu…

> He should start buying some cheap tools of his own (to start with) and do weekend/night jobs for himself. If he's working on 1.5m homes I guarantee you there are a ton of homeowners who need electrical jobs done. Get on Yelp, ask his customers to leave good reviews, and build a business. > There are a ton of niches and other opportunities. For example being available during late hours. In anything like a large or m…

Contracting electrical requires different licensing than most trades people have to do their job.

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

#590

Post by acdha »

Bloating wrote: post #445
UncleMeat wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

$1.5M+ homes is not a bad area

It can easily be a bad area for freelancing: imagine if it’s an area where you have big developments and maybe some large commercial or agricultural sites but not a ton of smaller places. The bigger contracts tend to go to the big companies who can handle a ton of work so there might not be that many people looking for small jobs - someone who just bought a new $1.5M home probably isn’t going to be doing much electrical work for years.
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