Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

731–740 of 915 posts

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

#731

Post by balls187 »

qwerpy wrote: post #690
balls187 wrote: post #471

Gen Z’s work ethic is a constant source of discussion among my peers (GenX/Elder Millenials)

What’s your conclusion? It’s hard for me to make generalizations. The ones who work at my high end FAANG company are all hard-working and driven. But they’re the cream of the crop.

I'm on the side that high performers (across all industries and generations) tend to be outliers.

The consensus is that GenZ's work ethic can be summed as "do the bare minimum not to get fired" and that they "work to live, not live to work."

Not that either ethos is a bad thing necessarily, it's just that they generally don't care about work as much as previous generations did.

My father's generation, employees stayed at their company until they retired. Mine, we switch jobs every 2-5 years. Early in my career, older individuals would question "why I switched jobs so frequently." Now, no one bats an eye at a 2-year stint.

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

#732

Post by ohthatsnotright »

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…

Code smells are way more nauseating because they're nearly entirely opinion based, whereas an actual odor can be solved to everyone's satisfaction by clearing a clogged main.

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

#733

Post by Gigachad »

AngryData wrote: post #648
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.

Yeah because you are paying for more than just their work on site. You are paying their commute, their time taking calls and finding bids, the maintenance on their vehicles, extra gas because they aren't transporting ladders in a focus, the maintenance and replacement of tools, their insurance, savings for market downturns, etc.

I like to imagine the costs for software changes. “Wow, the company just paid me $x00 to rearrange some fields on a form”

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

#734

Post by rcme »

Merad wrote: post #708
rcme wrote: post #198

Earlier 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.

Your info is a little out of date. Two months ago I hired movers to go 150 miles, and I did the packing myself. I have a house rather than an apartment but I don't have that much stuff. Cost was $3500. A full service pack and move across the country would probably be upwards of $5000. Even more if you were moving a whole family.

I literally just had a move from NYC to Stanford quoted at $5,500. A full pack-and-move from NYC to NJ suburbs was $2,500. Perhaps you have more stuff than me. I definitely have more stuff than a young person.

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

#735

Post by jameshush »

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…

Get in a union shop. My father was making between $100k-$150k/year USD (we were in Canada) in a SUPER low cost of living area as an electrician in one of the car factories. He retired 10 years ago so I imagine the salaries have gone up. Now he's living in Spain off a pension from the company, with company health insurance, playing golf everyday.

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

#737

Post by cpsns »

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?

You don't, you do what most of us do and suffer through it, coming out more bitter and broken on the other side. :)

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

#738

Post by nverno »

paxys wrote: post #720
clnq wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it's a case of "the grass is always greener", but before I became a software engineer, I felt much healthier doing a physical job.

It may feel better at the time but repetitive motions in most physical jobs will eventually catch up with your body. In an office job you can exercise on your own terms and without long term chronic pain.

I don't know, when I used to work on farms, the old guys were a lot healthier than most of the people I see in tech nowadays. Although, most of that work isn't unhealthily repetitive, like jack-hammering or something, so perhaps not a great example. But, use-it-or-lose-it is a real thing.

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

#740

Post by [deleted] »

Gigachad wrote: post #730
vl wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN