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Surprising salaries for jobs you’d never imagine

bbc.com

11–20 of 41 posts

Re: Surprising salaries for jobs you’d never imagine

#11
post #7
post #2

Proxy for UK users: https://simple-proxy.com/g.php?u=k3gVKwRdxrbr79mOfc6v2q7vafE...

Original: http://www.quora.com/Salaries-and-Wages/What-is-a-job-that-m...

Wow, this article merely rephrases the Quora comments' without contributing anything new to the discussion.

Re: Surprising salaries for jobs you’d never imagine

#12
Not surprised at all re: construction workers. That they can make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year is sort of a semi-open secret. The catch is that construction is a feast or famine occupation. During building booms, contractors and workers can make a small fortune. During busts, they can go bust. New York is a great place to be a construction worker, as there always seems to be a steady supply of new projects underway. San Francisco, right now, is making a lot of construction workers quite wealthy. But this boom will go bust eventually, and when it does, the demand drop will shock supply, and the jobs will dry up virtually overnight. Nobody has any great idea when that will happen, but the workers I've talked to [1] are an odd mix of giddy and pessimistic. There is sort of a "get it while the getting's still good" mentality afoot right now.

As you might imagine, any jobs tied to real estate development very closely track the real estate market, be it residential or commercial. That market can be exciting, but it's also inherently unstable.

[1] I don't work in construction, but I have invested in a few buildings, and I talk to contractors and workers pretty regularly.

Re: Surprising salaries for jobs you’d never imagine

#13
post #11
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Original: http://www.quora.com/Salaries-and-Wages/What-is-a-job-that-m...

Wow, this article merely rephrases the Quora comments' without contributing anything new to the discussion.

Pretty bad to see from the BBC, but at least you don't have to sign in to see it.

Re: Surprising salaries for jobs you’d never imagine

#14
post #9
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com."

Ah, thanks for sharing their explanation. That stills seems awfully weird to me.

It's not that weird if you understand the market in the UK.

As the BBC is a publicly funded broadcaster in competition with advertising supported private entities it has to be very careful to keep a Chinese firewall between it's commercial arm BBC Worldwide and the stuff that is done with public money otherwise the other broadcasters will jump all over them with the regulator and the fair market bodies.

Re: Surprising salaries for jobs you’d never imagine

#15

Not surprised at all re: construction workers. That they can make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year is sort of a semi-open secret. The catch is that construction is a feast or famine occupation. During building booms, contractors and workers can make a small fortune. During busts, they can go bust. New York is a great place to be a construction worker, as there always seems to be a steady supply of new projec…

> The catch is that construction is a feast or famine occupation. [...] There is sort of a "get it while the getting's still good" mentality afoot right now.

Indeed, and that's not good from the point of view of construction standards. When the going is good, contractors go pedal to the metal and will do everything they can as fast as they can, inevitably lowering their average work standards (both in terms of output quality and safety measures). Plus, construction booms typically lead to more widespread economic bubbles.

I wish we could find a way of stabilizing that particular market.

Re: Surprising salaries for jobs you’d never imagine

#16

Not surprised at all re: construction workers. That they can make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year is sort of a semi-open secret. The catch is that construction is a feast or famine occupation. During building booms, contractors and workers can make a small fortune. During busts, they can go bust. New York is a great place to be a construction worker, as there always seems to be a steady supply of new projec…

Likewise mining, but to a larger degree. A supervisor or crew boss can make good money, when they have a job at all. Also its dangerous. My relative got a back injury in a mining accident. All the therapy in the world wouldn't remove all the pain. It changed him forever. Was it worth the money?

Re: Surprising salaries for jobs you’d never imagine

#17
The oil boom in northern Alberta, Canada is another good example of high paying jobs without any skill or at least education.

Many small towns and fishing villages have been de-populated of men aged 20 to their 40s who went to work in the oil fields.

Going from seasonal work drawing unemployment benefits to $100,000+ working six months and all your food and lodging paid for even free tickets to fly to and from home.

Small towns now have big loud trucks from Alberta and lots of "that's not how we do it in Alberta" arguments. Small town poor boy makes it big can create some assholes.

Re: Surprising salaries for jobs you’d never imagine

#18
Is this what passes as journalism now? I mean:

>“My 19 year-old boss was taking home $35,000/year with benefits,” he said. “Plus they train you on the job for free. She told me that she was on track to be a regional manager by the age of 30 and would make 100k by then.”

>Katie Nellis said managers of Walgreen's drugstores in the US “often retire in their 40s.”

Are we just taking these wild, likely highly exaggerated claims at face value? And did the BBC really just re-publish comments from Quora as a story with no additional verification?

In that case, the most surprising salary is for journalists at the BBC - I'm surprised they can keep a job at all.

Re: Surprising salaries for jobs you’d never imagine

#19
post #15

Not surprised at all re: construction workers. That they can make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year is sort of a semi-open secret. The catch is that construction is a feast or famine occupation. During building booms, contractors and workers can make a small fortune. During busts, they can go bust. New York is a great place to be a construction worker, as there always seems to be a steady supply of new projec…

> The catch is that construction is a feast or famine occupation. [...] There is sort of a "get it while the getting's still good" mentality afoot right now. Indeed, and that's not good from the point of view of construction standards. When the going is good, contractors go pedal to the metal and will do everything they can as fast as they can, inevitably lowering their average work standards (both in terms of output…

> Plus, construction booms typically lead to more widespread economic bubbles.

If there is actually a causal relationship there, I would have thought it was the other way around.

Re: Surprising salaries for jobs you’d never imagine

#20

Not surprised at all re: construction workers. That they can make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year is sort of a semi-open secret. The catch is that construction is a feast or famine occupation. During building booms, contractors and workers can make a small fortune. During busts, they can go bust. New York is a great place to be a construction worker, as there always seems to be a steady supply of new projec…

What does it take to get into construction? I wouldn't mind doing physical labor for a change of pace. I would love to learn construction skills and I could always go back to programming when the construction market busts.
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