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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

#871

Post by Manuel_D »

SergeAx wrote: post #798
Manuel_D wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It obviously depends on the field. But if the YouTube video explains clearly why X technique is sub par, and demonstrates the failure mode I'd believe it over a tradesperson. Say you see your mechanic tighten the nuts on your wheel hub in a circular pattern instead of a star pattern. Would you point this out?

I know nothing about nuts tighten patterns. I always tighten four bolts system diagonally because I saw how things could deform otherwise. But I took it from my own experience, not from some guy with the camera and strong wish to earn money from ads on cloud video platform. Also I am 100% sure that if I first pre-tighten bolts in a circular manner, and then make a second circle of full tightening - it will be okay, j…

A good YouTube tutorial would tighten bolts circularly and how the resulting deformation. This is my point: if the failure mode is illustrated in a way understandable by a layperson, it seems totally reasonable to trust the youtube tutorial over a contractor. After all, the contractor is looking to make money, just like the YouTuber.

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

#872

Post by pauldardeau »

tlb wrote: post #657
dieselgate wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not trying to be a smarta$5 but suppose welding is working with a live circuit too

Arc, TIG, and MIG welding is fairly low voltage, like 15 - 30 volts. To start the arc there's a brief high-voltage high-frequency burst, but it's current limited. So it's pretty safe as far as electrocution goes.

I'm a hobby welder (going on 2 years). My inverter stick welder will go to 90 amps on a 120V outlet and up to 180 amps on a 240V outlet. It's not uncommon for engine drive welders (like what you see on trucks) to go up to 250 or 300 amps.

2 things that make welding relatively safe from electrocution are: (1) the steel you're welding on makes a much better path for electricity flow than your body (especially when you're wearing heavy welding gloves), (2) welding in a dry environment (not raining, not standing in water, not drenched in sweat, etc.).

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

#873

Post by sbaiddn »

dieselgate wrote: post #642
sbaiddn wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont know about residential buildings, but working on live circuits is a thing, and there are techniques to do it safish-ly. Namely dont touch two wires and dont be ground. Linesmen do it quite a lot. Linesmen is also one of the most dangerous jobs

not trying to be a smarta$5 but suppose welding is working with a live circuit too

There's tons of tasks that are done with live circuits. Lots of singers I've been told.

I've also heard that there are a lot of electrocuted singers. I was never sure if that's a myth though

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

#874

Post by balls187 »

switch007 wrote: post #796
balls187 wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 staye…

The world also stopped caring about them so much. House prices, rent prices, politicians pandering to the elder generations, allowing young people to get addicted to social media and all the psychological issues that causes, wilful destruction of the education system, removing third spaces etc. In the UK this was through the older generations consistently voting for right wing governments. Is it any wonder it looks l…

The attitude towards work probably has more to do with social media influence, than it does apathy.

At least in the US, policies have become much more friendly towards younger folks than they have ever been.

Federal student loan forgiveness, LGBT+ anti discrimination policies, individual medical insurance exchanges, are a few off the top of my head.

The cost of living and cost of education has far outpaced income growth, which does affect younger people disproportionately more, but the impact is not localized to only the young.

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

#875

Post by switch007 »

balls187 wrote: post #874
switch007 wrote: post #796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world also stopped caring about them so much. House prices, rent prices, politicians pandering to the elder generations, allowing young people to get addicted to social media and all the psychological issues that causes, wilful destruction of the education system, removing third spaces etc. In the UK this was through the older generations consistently voting for right wing governments. Is it any wonder it looks l…

The attitude towards work probably has more to do with social media influence, than it does apathy. At least in the US, policies have become much more friendly towards younger folks than they have ever been. Federal student loan forgiveness, LGBT+ anti discrimination policies, individual medical insurance exchanges, are a few off the top of my head. The cost of living and cost of education has far outpaced income gro…

But the young earn less. That’s a very weak attempt at justifying high “cost of living”. And what a euphemistic word that is.

It’s the cost of greed, not the cost of living. Too many ills in this world are the result of older generations’ greed.

And I could also say your opinion of gen z is also equally influenced by social media.

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

#876

Post by Manuel_D »

viraptor wrote: post #719
Manuel_D wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because business is a market. If your competitors are offering cheaper, faster jobs why would they pick you? As long as the corner cutting doesn't affect the customer, the latter is a better deal. The cynical reality is that safety violations affecting workers don't really matter to most customers, the end result and the cost of obtain it do. The more realistic scenario is less pay in exchange for slower hours.

> your competitors are offering cheaper, faster jobs why would they pick you? Quality and availability. Fewer better paid jobs in the pipeline means they can decide to pay extra for less waiting and a not-rushed job.

Non-rushed means more waiting, not less. Why would I pay extra for that?

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

#877

Post by hinkley »

stakhanov wrote: post #816
hinkley wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're hammering nails into a fucking horse. Which will typically get you arrested, unless you know how to do it right. I don't know if you know anyone who knows anything about horses, but if you say 'founder' near some horses they drop over dead an instant later. Literally cheaper to set wheelbarrows of money on fire. You have to really love horses to deal with them, and even then some of them complain endlessly t…

> Which will typically get you arrested, unless you know how to do it right. I don't think there are laws against trying to shoe your own horse and doing it badly if that's what you mean. I'm a horse owner who works as a software engineer for a living, and I'm so enraged by how much I have to pay the farrier and other horse-related tradespeople that it has very seriously crossed my mind, many times, to take the other…

That was a joke about stabbing horses with nails. OP did not say anything about hooves, thus illustrating the point that there are critical details a pro would know.

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

#878

Post by meetingthrower »

blahblah1234567 wrote: post #860
meetingthrower wrote: post #836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laziness on my part. I'm old and comfortable, and it takes real work for 10 years to get there. And of course it requires technical knowledge learned over those ten years! But if I had worked as hard as I did earlier in my career at a trade business (remember - much lower risk than a startup as the market is very well known and demand omnipresent), I would be much richer now.

So, it sounds a bit like Selection Bias-- The guys who create these companies you purchase have a local a network in the industry-- That is to say: The guys who create & run the companies are able to find labor. This article is about a labor shortage... Apparently a few tradesmen are able to recruit other tradesmen, and perhaps pay them well, in the right geographic locations where there are enough skilled tradesmen…

The skill of management is what allows you to recruit (see above. Good pay, career path, good training, treating people like humans, driving growth which creates opportunities for staff.) Most do not have it.

Of course I have selection bias. But I would say if you took a y-combinator founder and said "start a trade business", in 10 years that founder would have >50% chance of cashing out for $30M or more. (Which means $5M EBITDA, on typically a 30% EBITDA margin business. So $15-20M revenue.) And they would be able to cash flow it. AND they would be taking the profits out as they go.

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

#879

Post by godelski »

Justsignedup wrote: post #623
godelski wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's kinda an interesting thing with a fairly straight forward causal path. I honestly believe that most things in society have similar levels of complexity but we are only looking at single causal factors instead of these higher order terms. Maybe they contribute less, but they need to be accounted for.

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

#880

Post by yamtaddle »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #625
yamtaddle wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 franchis…

Yeah, my impression is that healthcare exchange plans are much better and cheaper in blue states than out here in flyover country. It's a shitshow out here. A wallet-emptying shitshow. Not exactly worse than before—at least stuff like pre-existing condition exclusions are gone—but definitely not good either.
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