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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

#761

Post by dinkumthinkum »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #723
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 vi…

People used to have parents that taught them things abs how to deal with home maintenance.

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

#762

Post by uberduper »

XorNot wrote: post #344
Avshalom wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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…

On an adjacent note, I'm really tired of the "underwater basket weaving" short hand being used. There's either a real degree you think is useless (which the above thread notes doesn't look nearly so useless by statistics) or there's not. There's a fairly long history of people inventing what they think is taught at colleges as a straw man to then criticize them in some way and it doesn't contribute to anything for th…

Maybe people want to use something made up rather than offend someone with a Youth and Community Studies degree.

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

#763

Post by dinkumthinkum »

dahart wrote: post #707
dinkumthinkum wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who told you any degree would do? People have lambasted underwater basket waving and things like that forever.

Where is underwater basket weaving a degree? (The answer is: nowhere, it doesn’t exist.) That term is a 50+-year old fictional pejorative used as a stand-in for useless academics. Sadly, the supposedly humorous point is entirely undermined by inventing a degree that doesn’t exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_basket_weaving FWIW, the St Louis Fed publishes stats on incomes of degree holders, and I recentl…

Focusing on the idea that it is a made up degree is pretty weird. Of course it is. It is a way of conveying a point. Not everything needs a Wikipedia link. :) it reminds of people that whip their phones out to look up every minute thing mentioned in a conversation. The point is that people have talked about useless degrees to the point that they are lampooned for, as you say, 50+ years, which certainly predates 90s kids. Therefore, there was a widespread cultural awareness that a gender studies degree is not likely to be as valuable as electrical engineering. I think too often people think college education is not needed because they can just Google things but they don’t think how much more efficient it is to just know things and be able to reason for themselves.

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

#764

Post by throwaway5959 »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #603
throwaway5959 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

100%. Worth their weight in gold, in both financial and productivity measures.

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

#765

Post by deepsun »

sporedro wrote: post #726
SergeAx wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No please no. Me like read. Video no good.

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

#766

Post by emodendroket »

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…

Everyone thinks more kids should be tradesmen but few people seem to mean their own.

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

#767

Post by emodendroket »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #757
concordDance wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a programmer at 50 is much harder than at 25, a bigger difference than plumber at 25 and 50.

How is that true?

If it is it has more to do with discrimination than the nature of the job.

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

#768

Post by emodendroket »

moate wrote: post #541
WalterBright wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As a former chef, I'll gladly take the extra few pounds and minor shoulder issues I've gotten as PM over scalding hot oil being poured on my arms or a meat slicer taking the tip of my thumb mostly off. https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/False-E...

The examples in that article seem poorly chosen.
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