Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would they even know? Assuming they keep quiet about it
Yeah, once the employer finds out, they've got enough business to quit.
Licensing is different for trade employers vs trade people.
The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z
591–600 of 915 posts
Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z
#592Earlier quoted context omitted.
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? Climbing ladders. The knees go.
it's not any different than stairs unless you fall down from a height.
Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z
#593Earlier quoted context omitted.
But you are doing exactly same stuff as software developer - sitting all day at computer is not healthy for body or mind either.
You can mitigate that by taking frequent breaks, and getting a standing desk. How can you mitigate wear to your body while working for the trades?
Frequent breaks, knee pads, using a proper respirator, other ppe? Knee pads make a huge difference for me, at least, and a back brace to encourage proper form when lifting, if I'm doing something that involves a lot of weight.
Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z
#594Earlier 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…
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.
That's where all the jobs have been in the last five years in his area. His teams are also doing commercial wiring as well, but new builds dominate the work. And they are supposed to complete jobs fast - even if the work is simple doing it fast is not easy.
And so what? "You can succeed if you go into trades... but make sure you don't end up in some of these widespread roles" is a very different narrative than what is usually presented.
Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z
#595"Youtube university" has most definitely had an effect. Particularly in regards to the lack of pay increase in the trades. My toilet is leaking? 10 years ago I'd call a plumber. Now I diagnose the problem and determine if it's within my skill level to learn the repair (it usually is). For me, this wouldn't be feasible without online how-to videos. A plumber/carpenter/electrician will charge me $50-$100/hr for work th…
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…
I believe it. For floors, especially, the barrier to entry to the field is very low. Most of the important techniques you can pick up on the job during your first install.
Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z
#596"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 are major reasons why it would be unattractive.
Tell him to look at moving to New Zealand. Good salary (for NZ), 4 weeks paid vacation and plenty of paid public holidays (mandatory) and a lot of jobs going. No health insurance but few people here have health insurance, and anything accident related is covered by a mandatory insurance (basically a tax) scheme.
Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z
#597Earlier 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?
This statistic is so misleading. I know you have honest intentions, but I think you find this statistic appealing because you have a worldview that poor people are helpless. If you read the actual report that statistic came from, you would see that about 40% said they had enough in savings to cover a surprise $500 expense. Another 21% said they would rely on a credit card, while 20% said they’d cut back on other expenses. Another 11% said they’d turn to family or friends for the money. So roughly 92% of people have a way of covering a $500 expense.
If you look at the discussion this statistic has started, it's basically a pissing contest of more and more extreme means that either help or hinder one's ability to move. But both sides of the argument are total strawmen: a vast majority of Americans can cover a $500 expense. Most people can find a way to move if they really want to. Those who can't are likely people you wouldn't want to hire.
Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z
#598Earlier quoted context omitted.
For example being a software engineer outside the US, working for a local business, selling to local customers. In Latin America, programmers can make about 10 or 20 times less than in the US.
Why does this happen?
Wages are generally controlled almost entirely by supply/demand. In an area where there are more people interested in doing a job than there is in demand for that job, wages for that occupation will trend towards the lowest possible value. In an area where there is more demand for a certain skillset than exists, wages will trend to the maximum affordable cost for anybody with that skill.
All the other stuff like expertise and value is, counterintuitively, near irrelevant. For instance postdocs are some of the most highly educated and ostensibly highly skilled individuals - and many have taken on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to get to where they are, yet they earn about as much as a plumber does, because there's far more supply of postdocs than there are jobs/positions for them.
So putting all the theory into practice. There are usually three possible reasons. Supply is too high = excessively high rates of software training/education. Demand is too low = not many roles for software developers. Or the companies that are hiring aren't making much themselves so the "maximum affordable cost" is relatively low.
Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z
#599"Youtube university" has most definitely had an effect. Particularly in regards to the lack of pay increase in the trades. My toilet is leaking? 10 years ago I'd call a plumber. Now I diagnose the problem and determine if it's within my skill level to learn the repair (it usually is). For me, this wouldn't be feasible without online how-to videos. A plumber/carpenter/electrician will charge me $50-$100/hr for work th…
Why anecdotes are not data: I have the exact opposite experience. In my opinion time is money, and $50-$100 is money I can earn a lot faster at my contracting rates than I can fixing my toilet. In any case, the fact that skilled trade work is still extremely expensive where I live and has not gone down post-pandemic points to the fact that these tradespeople are having no trouble finding jobs.
> $50-$100 is money I can earn a lot faster at my contracting rates than I can fixing my toilet.
This only applies if you had to use your normal contracting time to fix the toilet. If you're doing it on personal time the value isn't as obvious.
Re: The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice with Gen Z
#600"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…
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