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

#621

Post by maxerickson » Fri, Jan 06, 2023, 2:27 AM UTC

baremetal wrote: post #300

WalterBright wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I employ a tradesman to fix something around here, I get an astonishingly high bill.

There is an old joke about a doctor who calls a plumber. He gets the bill and says "That's outrageous, that's more than I make as a doctor". The plumber replies "Yeah that's more than I made as a doctor too."

The last time I called a plumber they ran a power snake about 60 feet down the sanitary line and cut out a pretty amazing chunk of tree roots (I called them because water had started to backup into my basement utility sink).

I was pretty happy to pay the 4 or 5 times what the day rental for machine would have been. Took em about 25 minutes.

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

#622

Post by TimTheTinker » Fri, Jan 06, 2023, 2:27 AM UTC

jjulius wrote: post #305

WalterBright wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried yoga? You might change your mind if you had. It's not a joke.

I've done it many times, even hot yoga. I also have extensive experience wiring up and decommissioning data centers, involving lots of odd contorting. Yoga felt a lot better for me than contorting my body in odd ways.

Agreed - when you're crawling through a tight attic, staying on the joists and avoiding HVAC ducts, going into weird poses to drive j-box mounting screws or something... it's not about staying in "correct" poses.

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

#623

Post by Justsignedup » Fri, Jan 06, 2023, 2:30 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #606

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-suffici…

perfectly stated. If I am not getting raises, I won't be able to afford to pay more for skilled labor needs. Therefore I'll spend time on YT University. Therefore I'll reduce the amount of flow to skilled labor, therefore they get desperate and exit, and the cycle continues.

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

#624

Post by bee_rider » Fri, Jan 06, 2023, 2:32 AM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #117

mfer wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't the case for all trades people. It might be a bad area or a bad employer. I've know trades folks who are electricians, plumbers, carpenters, work in road construction, etc. They typically work reasonable hours, have medical, and are paid at or above the median income for where they live. They didn't rack up debt getting into this either. This is not a bad deal for many people.

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…

Definitely don’t want to cheapen the toll that trade work takes on the body, but do want to note that we all do sell our bodies and health one way or another. Heart disease is one of the main killers of Americans and all the office workers sitting in chairs for ~8 hours a day aren’t doing ourselves any favors there…

I mean, yeah, on balance I’d rather be an API plumber than an actual physical plumber — code smells are less nauseating than poop smells — but there are advantages to jobs that keep you moving around.

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

#625

Post by lotsofpulp » Fri, Jan 06, 2023, 2:32 AM UTC

yamtaddle wrote: post #473

lotsofpulp wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy the same health insurance on healthcare.gov that businesses buy from the same insurance companies. They even have metal levels so you know you are getting the same actuarial value. A silver BCBS plan from an employer is basically the same coverage as a silver BCBS plan from healthcare.gov.

False in my state, at least. And ours is on the healthcare.gov fallback (the state didn't set up an exchange). The state of things here: 1) Most insurers don't offer anything on healthcare.gov. Most years, there are two providers on there, though sometimes one will drop off and another will come in, so it does vary a little year-to-year. 2) Zero insurers here offer individual plans outside hc.gov, so if they're not o…

That sucks, I have not experienced that in NY/NJ/CA/WA.

NJ even has a public document listing all the insurance prices, and they matched the amount quoted to me by the insurance agent for my business.

https://www.state.nj.us/dobi/division_insurance/ihcseh/ihcra...

BCBS is also a network, not the insurance company. So you never buy insurance from BCBS, but rather whichever insurance company has chosen to be a franchise, such as Regence, Horizon NJ, Independence, Elevance, etc.

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

#626

Post by alvah » Fri, Jan 06, 2023, 2:34 AM UTC

baremetal wrote: post #396

SoftTalker wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, industrial/institutional, high voltage, multi-phase, transformers, utility-level stuff e.g. generation and transmission, etc.

Industrial automation as well.

24V / 4-20mA isn't really the same job though.

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

#627

Post by xyzzy123 » Fri, Jan 06, 2023, 2:35 AM UTC

ryanmccullagh wrote: post #536

thedaly wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a union plumbing company in a major metro area and union plumbers make very good money here (100k+). We aren’t losing any business to YouTube. We only do service for commercial businesses, and the house engineer isn’t going out of the way to do any more work than what is absolutely necessary. You will still need a plumber if you do a large remodel or new construction. Good on you for learning how to do more…

> and the house engineer isn’t going out of the way to do any more work than what is absolutely necessary Most contractors: Doing the absolute minimum necessary and cutting corners

If you changed the incentive structure and allocation of risk you might get different results.

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

#628

Post by somenameforme » Fri, Jan 06, 2023, 2:36 AM UTC

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…

Employment works very differently in trades than e.g. software. The main thing is that customers don't care about the company they're using, but about the guy that comes out to help them. So picking up a clientele is extremely easy if you do a good job. And word of mouth multiplies that clientele pretty quickly. And the thing about the trades is that they always need to be done, endlessly. Paint starts to chip, electricity eventually breaks, plumbers go without saying, ...

This is why the normal trajectory, for a skilled tradesman, is apprenticeship -> experience -> accumulate clients -> go independent.

If you want to go independent in something like software you need, among other things, a good idea. If you want to go independent in the trades, all you need is a good reputation and enough people with your card. You don't even need to try either really. Do a good job and people themselves will proactively ask for your contact information. Finding a good and reliable tradesman is not easy.

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

#629

Post by ClumsyPilot » Fri, Jan 06, 2023, 2:41 AM UTC

acdha wrote: post #590

Bloating wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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 electri…

> someone who just bought a new $1.5M home probably isn’t going to be doing much electrical work for years

unless its UK, then the house with that pricetag was last fixed in the 60's, needs total rewiring, and has energy efficiency of a damp tent.

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

#630

Post by lmm » Fri, Jan 06, 2023, 2:41 AM UTC

Bloating wrote: post #472

nemo44x wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the problem with it all, tradesmen are all too eager to undercut each other for some reason. There's so much work, especially for trades that require a license that anyone that isn't charging premium money is a fool. And there's lots of foolish tradesmen with short term thinking and eager to sell their services as a low price option. Often with low price work to boot. You rarely see older guys going for cheap…

Free market competition should be outlawed! Collusion should be legal. Unless I don't like your virtue signals, then you're a greedy capitalist robber baron!

When you "compete" by working in a way that damages the worker's health, yes, that should be outlawed. (Negative externalities are the fancy economics term)

Large corporations are already legalised collusion. Allowing those with competing interests to "collude" at the same level is a necessary counterbalance to that.