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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

#721

Post by inferiorhuman »

adastra22 wrote: post #370
SoftTalker wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what a contractor does when he doesn't want the job because it's basically too small and would be more of an annoyance than anything worth doing. Bid an outrageous amount and then if the client says "yes" at least you're making some money. He's probably got a backlog of large jobs he can make more money on. So if he's going to come out and do outlet installation on one house, he's going to bid an amount that…

I can confirm that is the the going rate right now.

FWIW I paid about $100 an outlet recently (as part of a much larger project). Yes you can get 99 cent receptacles at Home Depot, yes they will be crap (residential grade) and likely not up to code. NEC requires all circuits in the kitchen and bathroom be GFCI protected, and all kitchen outlets to also be tamper resistant. A GFCI, non-TR receptacle costs bout $15 at Home Depot, and again you're talking bargain basement units that a professional electrician may not want to install for risk of having to eat the cost of a return visit. Commercial and hospital grade outlets both cost more ($30+, $50+ respectively for tamper resistant GFCI). The outlets with USB A+C ports start at around $60 per.

In some jurisdictions you may be able to get away with one GFCI outlet per circuit, but then you're paying for their time to map out which circuits are which.

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

#722

Post by unholythree »

nimbius wrote: post #672
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…

hi, tradesworker here (IMU union diesel mechanic.) i learn and practice python and pretend i understand ai/ml on hn. your brother in law sounds stout, and at risk of getting into a bar fight i gotta say it: it just doesnt sound like hes there yet. if he had trade certifications, state certs and experience on his own, there isnt a shop i can think of in the midwest that wouldnt offer everything the HN hacker crowd get…

I’ve also seen plenty of career helpers, but they’re almost always screw-ups, unambitious, or both. After all half of the population is sub 100 IQ, and some otherwise smart people just like slamming beers, chasing tail, and showing up hungover every shift more then getting promoted.

Making journeyman in most trades around here means a comfortable middle class salary, sending you kids to the less expensive private schools, a boat if you save up. Beats what you’d make being a teacher, social worker, or librarian.

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

#723

Post by MaxHoppersGhost »

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…

Only on HN would this be so highly upvoted. Most electricians and plumbers are doing commercial work or residential construction. The plumbers and electricians doing house calls are a tiny portion of their business. And before YouTube university people were just as handy and could figure it out by going down to the local hardware store and talking to someone rather than ordering it on Amazon and watching a YouTube video.

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

#724

Post by pcthrowaway »

bee_rider wrote: post #624
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…

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 ar…

Not to mention RSI, eye problems, and other issues from performance-enhancing drugs lots of tech workers take to stay focused

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

#725

Post by adastra22 »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #721
adastra22 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confirm that is the the going rate right now.

FWIW I paid about $100 an outlet recently (as part of a much larger project). Yes you can get 99 cent receptacles at Home Depot, yes they will be crap (residential grade) and likely not up to code. NEC requires all circuits in the kitchen and bathroom be GFCI protected, and all kitchen outlets to also be tamper resistant. A GFCI, non-TR receptacle costs bout $15 at Home Depot, and again you're talking bargain basemen…

To be clear, the $50 was labor only.

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

#726

Post by sporedro »

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.

A bit off topic, but I’d love to see something like Wikipedia references added to YouTube in some way. Being able to cite something at a point of video would be awsome. Sounds like it might be sorta impossible tho

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

#727

Post by jollofricepeas »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #677
specialp wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is another aspect too. It completely breaks your body. Electricians get carpal tunnel worse than information workers by constantly squeezing lineman pliers, knees get shot. Your career path is work like that and hopefully before you get older, start your own company and hire younger people to do the body breaking work. But not everyone in the field will end up doing that so many end up in bad shape

And you have to go do it. I love working behind a computer. I sit in a chair. Waking up at 5am to go to a client site to do some physical labor 40+ hours a week for my entire life sounds like hell. Even if the money was incredible it would suck.

I wonder if maybe modern bodies aren’t built for manual labor?

I’d love to talk with any of the millions of voluntary and involuntary manual laborers from the past 200 years and learn about how they made it through their lifetimes working in fields and factories in stress positions under substandard conditions.

To be honest, I guess we could just interact with and ask present day laborers across the globe cranking out products for Western mass consumption.

It’s got to be about the same I’d guess 1822 to 2022, no?

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

#728

Post by paxys »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #538
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…

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.

For $50 I'd gladly call someone to fix my toilet. When the minimum rate is $250 it now makes a lot more sense for me to spend an hour doing it myself.

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

#729

Post by analog31 »

specialp wrote: post #669
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…

There is another aspect too. It completely breaks your body. Electricians get carpal tunnel worse than information workers by constantly squeezing lineman pliers, knees get shot. Your career path is work like that and hopefully before you get older, start your own company and hire younger people to do the body breaking work. But not everyone in the field will end up doing that so many end up in bad shape

Whenever tradesmen come to my house for a job, the ones who are my age, 59, are hobbling and broken. A couple other things come to mind: Places where trade work pays more, are probably also more expensive to live in. And the trades are at the mercy of the construction cycle.

I could imagine the trades being more attractive in countries with better labor laws and social safety net.

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

#730

Post by Gigachad »

vl wrote: post #691
gruez wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

How can you mitigate burn out/mental health issues caused by lack of human interactions and working in the hugely competitive field?

Stop working from home, go to the office and socialise. Stop comparing yourself to Netflix $900k jobs. Take holidays. Stop side hustling some SaaS app that will never go anywhere.

Get a hobby that isn’t focused on making money. HN isn’t the real world.

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