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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

#601

Post by rootusrootus »

dr_kretyn wrote: post #550
blitz_skull wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I need someone for a small job if I’ve spent years tackling small jobs? It’s the big jobs the OC specifically mentioned maybe needing help with. It’s like insurance at this point. I can probably cover 90% of the small stuff. But when the big stuff hits, I call someone.

Had a small job recently - install vent from bathroom fan to go outside. Required getting to attic, cut a hole in the wall/roof and install vent. It was too small for most companies i called. Took me 3 month to find someone and it costed 1k cad.

One thing I've found is that you have to call the right people. As tempting as it is to get a professional in the right field, you do find pretty quickly that they don't want small jobs. For that you will be much more successful if you talk to a handyman.

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

#602

Post by porknubbins »

pwarner wrote: post #526
rybosworld wrote: post #503

"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…

Youtube basically helps me do jobs I could already do, to a higher level of quality. Like painting a room, I now know the mistakes to avoid. But when it came to major drywall repair/replacement it was no help, there is must too much individual variation that experience trumps information.

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

#603

Post by TimTheTinker »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #177
falcolas wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a semi-retired craftsman I watch regularly on youtube - Essential Craftsman. Almost all long-term success stories in the trades which he tells directly or gets from his friends involve transitioning from a tradesman to an employer. You're selling your health and body as a tradesman. If you can make the transition to running a trades business, then you're selling your brainpower more than your body. Success st…

Came here to say this. Growing up in the Midwest I saw this all the time. The kids of plumbers that owned a plumbing business lived in a very nice part of town, the kids of plumbers still going to job sites lived in an OK part of town.

This also applies to self-employed tradespeople who have good reputations in their area.

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

#604

Post by maxerickson »

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?

Ultrasound technicians have a limit to how long they can work because of wear and tear (they hold the scanner a lot). Repetitive stuff isn't good.

And like lots of people have damaged their knees running. It isn't obscure.

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

#605

Post by rootusrootus »

anonreeeeplor wrote: post #348

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.”

> zero respect in society

Is that really how you see it? I've never felt that way about the contractors coming to do work at my house. On the contrary, after I fork over a thousand bucks a day (minimum) for their expert work, I'm wondering if they're in fact a bit higher in the social hierarchy than I am. I feel a little self-conscious sometimes admitting that I move bits around on a screen for a living and have to hire someone to do the real work when it's time.

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

#606

Post by godelski »

rybosworld wrote: post #503

"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…

There's an interesting other factor that I don't think you're considering here. If you had surplus cash I'd be willing to bet you'd be more willing to pay someone to do this rather than do it yourself. Most people aren't going to YouTube University for the pleasure of learning new things, but rather because they need to learn something new and need to save some cash.

I don't know about you, but my repair self-sufficiency came out of being poor and having to do things myself because I had an excess of time but not an excess of cash. This seems to be a rather common divide I see in people. Though I'll be honest, I don't think most people even want to learn these things, even if they are strapped for cash.

So the interesting factor I see here is really about a wealth distribution. A fundamental aspect of capitalism is that money needs to constantly be changing hands. There are many factors in an economy that can slow down the exchange of capital and this seems to be one of them.

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

#607

Post by acdha »

JamesBarney wrote: post #583
crazygringo wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 archaeolog…

Strong second on this point. It was especially rough on couples since you need to find two jobs and deal with things like what happens if your tenure track job is in a field/area which assumes everyone has family wealth (you’ll see - in 2022 - faculty jobs listed in NYC paying $40k!). Don’t forget there’s often a narrow window: too many years out of your Ph.D program and it gets harder since you’re assumed to be stale/flawed even if the true constraint on the job market was budget cuts.

I’m reminded of a friend who moved - with no prior experience living outside of the U.S. - to Tasmania because that’s the one place in the world where their partner could get a permanent job when they were on the market. That’s worked out well for their family but it’s nothing like the way a software developer can be flexible.

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

#608

Post by rootusrootus »

Dalewyn wrote: post #543
uses wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, more journalist hate. Let's blame the journalist for writing a well-researched, thorough article citing multiple primary sources, because it tells us facts we don't like. It's gas lighting by the elites after all! This is why, whenever I read an article about anything, I blame the gas lighting elite journalists in their cozy chairs with their opinions backed by nothing. Those damned journalists, always reporting…

Journalists would have better rep if they, you know, /journaled/ the goings on in the world instead of crapping out biased opinion pieces passed off as "journalism". Over the past decade I've come to hate "journalists" more than I do lawyers, car salesmen, and politicians. They are one of the chief drivers behind many of the problems we face as societies today.

Maybe the problem is lumping entirely too many people under the generic term 'journalist.' Then it becomes very easy to find examples you hate. Of course, it should also make it easier to find examples you love, yet it rarely seems to happen that way.

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

#609

Post by thrashh »

UncleMeat wrote: post #594
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.

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 i…

CS obviously makes way more but I hear tons of stories of people working overtime or having shitty bosses in developer jobs too, and yet the narrative I hear a lot is get a FAANG job, make 400k then retire by 30

There isn’t any automatic get rich easy scheme. To some extent you have to keep your wits about and make sure you are getting your worth

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

#610

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

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's also highly dangerous. I knew a guy that was the electrician to a 50+ year old high rise. He could not turn off the power, don't know why, so he worked with live current all the time. He told me that he would go to the main power source and he could hear it crackle, while he worked on it,since there was so much current going through it.

He joked about it but, ya, no thank you.

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