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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

#631

Post by sarchertech »

Avshalom wrote: post #231
dionidium wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First we were told that we needed the college degree for a job. Any degree would do. Something strange is happening here that I can't quite understand. Jokes about English majors asking if you want fries with that are way older than me and I first started college in 1999. Yes, I heard a persistent low rumbling of "go to college," but the idea that "any degree would do" is alien to me. Of course I knew that some maj…

>> Jokes about English majors asking if you want fries Sure but that never stopped anyone from pulling out BLS statistics showing life-time earning potential of an BA in english vs a highschool diploma. But the point of bringing up "any degree" isn't that any student thought (or any guidance counselor said) that underwater basket weaving and electrical engineering had the same potential it's that we were told to go t…

I’m an older millennial who went to a not great high school and an ok state university.

Of all the people from high school still working dead end service jobs, I don’t know any with a college degree.

Sure there are people who studied English who aren’t making tons of money, but they also aren’t stuck working at Walmart like some of the people who don’t have degrees are.

An English degree isn’t enough to get you a $100k a year job out of college, but it is enough for just about anyone to get their foot in the door to a career where they can make close to that eventually.

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

#632

Post by biofunsf »

meetingthrower wrote: post #360

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. Y…

Private equity buying up all these companies is actually a huge part of the problem! IMHO. For the older folks who are selling their company, it's of course a huge boon, but for people entering the trade, it's a huge negative.

In the past, when you started a trade, you could apprentice with a small, locally-owned and operated company. If you worked at it long and hard, you'd have a good chance at being able to buy the company or a stake of it from the owners as they enter retirement. I've heard that in many areas, like veterinary clinics, this was a very common path forward for people entering the career.

But nowadays, all these small local companies are increasingly owned by private equity groups from afar that have their eyes on profit. You'll have no chance of working up to an ownership stake. And once the private equity group takes over, you can be sure that your work will be increasingly optimized to maximize profit, which could be good, but it can also mean cutting out the parts of your job that are less profitable but more enjoyable. The path forward is harder. To be a real business owner, your only real option will be starting a new firm from scratch.

So anyway, I don't mean to be overly critical, and it's great to see someone in private equity posting here. If you have any thoughts on my comments above I'd love to hear them. Cheers.

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

#633

Post by lr4444lr »

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…

I think a lot of people who major in those subjects with very competitive jobs just don't have it in them either skillwise or motivationwise to work that hard. They have a semi interest in them, and the grading is not as harsh as many STEM fields, and they might like the idea of a not too hard job to get in those fields, but they don't have the mettle for graduate work and several underling stints to really make that a career. And college advisors are doing them a shameful disservice not to mention the actual time and intensity commitment needed to do those things.

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

#634

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

Justsignedup wrote: post #620
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This. This is a real dangerous job. We talk about "police run into gunfights". yeah... "Electricians run into fatal power!"

Not to toss flamebait, but… I don’t think police do run into gunfights.

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

#635

Post by panza »

missedthecue wrote: post #564
FatActor wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are way older than me and I first started college in 1999. I was told not to major in "underwater basketweaving" in 1983, or otherwise I'd be garbage man--as if that were not one of the most important jobs in a society! It's been the same class-warfare BS for coming up on half a century: demean low paying jobs at all costs for reasons I still don't understand.

"demean low paying jobs at all costs for reasons I still don't understand." A lot of the demeaning came from the low wage workers themselves. Both my grandparents were blue collar. One painted houses, one was an elevator mechanic. They essentially forbade their children from going into the trades. "Learn to make a living with your brain, not your back" was what my dad heard constantly from his father while growing up…

This rings true for me. Blue collar parents, absolutely no way they'd let me get a trade. Couldn't even join the military - had to be university.

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

#636

Post by ClumsyPilot »

Manuel_D wrote: post #570
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 this squares with the statistics shared in the article that the average (not sure if median or mean) ages of many trades is in the 50s. Evidently they can continue to perform these jobs into middle age and beyond.

life goes on after you retire mate. many live to 80+

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

#637

Post by JamesBarney »

crazygringo wrote: post #612
JamesBarney wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Except there's orders of magnitude more competition for those NBA players though, than there is for archaeology (or historian). Especially when you realize how mind-numberingly tedious it mostly is, so much cataloguing seemingly endless shards... (Or endless 16th-century documents, if you're a historian.) But if you've really got your heart set on archaeology/history, they're not fantasies. They're just extremely nic…

Conditional on playing college ball, there is maybe 1 order of magnitude difference in terms of competition. If you play in college there's a 1.2% chance you play in the NBA. And probably a 10-15% chance of working as an archaeologist condition on getting a degree same as getting a tenure track professorship conditioned on getting a PhD in History.

One of the biggest differences though, is you figure out whether or not you're getting into the NBA at aged 20, after going to school on an athletic scholarship.

You figure out you're not going to get tenure at 32 after finishing up your 3rd post doc, with 250k in student loans.

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

#638

Post by AngryData »

WalterBright wrote: post #262
falcolas wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the wear-and-tear on your brain from an office job will always be significantly lower (and thus remain a viable job for much longer) than a job in the figurative or literal trenches.

Sitting in a chair all day is not good for your health long term.

Probably, but it still isn't even comparable to the amount of damage and wear done to a body through the trades. Its like comparing some guy who plays bar league baseball to a 1st string NFL player.

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

#639

Post by faangiq »

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…

The field is like this because it’s populated by lazy and stupid people.

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

#640

Post by TrackerFF »

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…

That may only work in countries with lax regulations. Some countries, you're barely allowed to touch anything yourself as far as electrical and plumbing goes.

Or, of course, you could do it yourself - but there's no way you'll ever get your house insured unless certified professionals sign off on inspection.

And that is for a good reason - shoddy electrical work can burn down the house, while shoddy plumbing can cause extensive damage.

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