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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

#151

Post by omginternets »

bluedino wrote: post #139

I was working for an aerospace manufacturer for a while. We were getting 40/50 year old apprentices for the trades, guys coming off the production floor. Electricians, millwrights, CNC machinists... we couldn't find enough of them. I get it. Nobody wants to stand in front of a machine (or 5-6 machines) for 10 hours a day. Nobody wants to be in a 90 degree factory all day. Nobody wants to work 2nd or 3rd shifts. The p…

I'm curious, has your employer tried paying more? There are a fair few desk jobs that pay $25-30/hr, and it's entirely possible that people are trading job stability for something that isn't so physically demanding.

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

#152

Post by jfengel »

eddsh1994 wrote: post #48
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…

This is why Unions exist, no? Personally I sometimes wonder if I'd have enjoyed plumbing water more than plumbing code as I'd be meeting more people face to face, physically active, and it can get surprisingly complex (Berkeley, I think, offers a postgrad cert in plumbing buildings like sky scrapers which I saw advertised the other day)

Probably not. Maybe you just really like people, but in a lot of trades, the people you meet are grumpy. They don't want to meet you; they just want their problem solved. Either they're building a new thing (and trying to meet an aggressive schedule... and are probably behind by the time they bring in the plumbers) or repairing an old thing (and dealing with people who are cranky that the thing failed).

It's probably not as bad as tech support, where you can guarantee that the person on the other end of the phone is angry. But it's probably at least as bad as retail, and nobody ever says "I love meeting people so I'll go handle cash from strangers".

I know that there are extroverts in the world who get a charge out of meeting new people every day. And there's a big bonus to not sitting in a chair in front of a screen, especially if you're one of those. But I've got a feeling you're a lot happier with coding-level salaries and meeting strangers after you clock out.

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

#153

Post by nostrademons »

Ekaros wrote: post #110
UncleMeat wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tradespeople will definitely not be making 300k+ off a few years of experience five years from now.

And if they were, who could afford to pay them that? Other tradespeople? Ultra-rich?

That part is relatively easy to answer. When there are only enough tradespeople to maintain 10% of homes, the top 10% of income earners will get their services, and the top 10% will spend a majority of their wealth on home maintenance. It's already happening in areas with a lot of rich people and few tradespeople - it costs me $1000 to run a camera down my sewer line, $4K to roto-root it, about $20-30K to fix a collapsed pipe. The top-10% has been doing fine in terms of income, but now that it's so un-economical to go into a field other than tech or finance, they're going to have to spend a lot of that on essential services.

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

#154

Post by convolvatron »

r00fus wrote: post #30
dangerwill wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COBRA is for temporarily keeping employer provided healthcare after leaving a company and is basically a non-option except as a short term bridge to a new employer provided plan. I believe independent workers generally go to the health care exchanges and buy a private health care plan. Rates vary wildly by state, coverage details, and your age but I've recently looked in Washington state for midrange (silver) plans a…

I know people who surfed the COBRA wave - ie, joined full-time for a company for a month every year or two to keep COBRA going and then going back to contract work in the interim.

I just left FTE and took COBRA and they are giving me 18mo!

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

#155

Post by jterrys »

sojournerc wrote: post #90
aliqot wrote: post #17

An uncomfortable truth is that you can have open borders or high unskilled labor wages, but seldom both.

1) Carpenters and Plumbers (electricians, mechanics, etc) are _not_ unskilled. There's a reason these trades have apprenticeships - there's _a lot_ to know and learn before you're capable on your own. 2) A path for immigrants to legally work in those fields would likely push down wages, but it would also reduce the cost of those services! Housing could become cheaper, so could the ongoing cost of owning a home. That…

Hello, child of construction worker here!

>Carpenters and Plumbers (electricians, mechanics, etc) are _not_ unskilled

Is a load of shit. At least in the USA, you can have one person (typically business owner) get licensed in the trade and then lease out that license for his unskilled immigrant labor force. He can run his own business and his "apprentices" are taught enough to do the work. This is the vast majority of construction. You got union projects which are a whole different ball game but union jobs do not represent the vast majority of construction in the USA.

>A path for immigrants to legally work in those fields would likely push down wages, but it would also reduce the cost of those services!

It doesn't reduce the cost of shit because real estate is a racket. It's not a free market economy driven by community college level econ courses. In any metropolitan downtown area that you visit most of the buildings are owned by a handful of firms. Real estate properties are increasingly managed by (you guessed it) management firms that are part of publicly traded corporations (REITs). These guys extend way beyond any downtown area and are the majority of rented out properties in cities and adjacent suburbs.

Construction is a ghetto that is flooded by illegal immigrant workers. Business owners are complicit in the practice of hiring said workers to squeeze out margins. As long as liability can be passed down to someone holding some kind of license, that's all that matters.

If you actually want to enter a successful trade in construction become an elevator engineer. You are 100% union and obscure and niche enough with significant safety risks that nobody is able to undercut you because there's a LOT of regulation in place to make sure people don't get stuck and die in elevators.

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

#156

Post by pcthrowaway »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #75
oceanplexian wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fitting pipes together is not "back breaking". We're not talking about framing or roofing, in the contracting world plumbing is a light duty skilled trade that anyone with half a brain can earn a 6-figure income on. If you take care of yourself and wear protective equipment, you won't have a problem with your knees in middle age. There's no "forced retirement", someone working as an independent contractor for 25 year…

The median income for a plumber is $50k, only 10% make above $91k. https://insights.workwave.com/industry/plumbing-electrical/p... 6-figure incomes for plumbers are rare.

According to that site, the average in California and Oregon is 6 figures for 7+ years of experience, so perhaps not that dismal for HCOL

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

#157

Post by JumpCrisscross »

joecot wrote: post #134
megaman821 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is all the money people paying tradespeople going? If I need any plumbing work done it costs me $200 an hour or more. Even with overhead and expenses, 10 hours a week gets you more than $50k a year. Twenty years ago my grandfather was a marine plumber and made $200k a year. How many apprentices and part-time plumber are in these datasets?

If retail stores are making record breaking profits, why are service workers paid so little? If medical costs are so high, why aren't nurses and nurse aids making more? It's not rocket science. People aren't getting paid for the value of their labor, and productivity has rocketed up while wages have stagnated for decades. Your plumber charges 200 an hour and doesn't make anywhere near that much, because they work for…

> plumber charges 200 an hour and doesn't make anywhere near that much, because they work for a company who profits massively off their labor and exploits him as far as the law and supply and demand will allow

Do most plumbers responding to house calls work for an employer? There aren't many economies of scale in that work.

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

#158

Post by maxsilver »

yucky wrote: post #129
joecot wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original premise was that trades are where all the money is, and Gen Z should be listening to that. My point is that we were previously told: the money is in college degrees, the money is in STEM, the money is in nursing. And people invested a lot of time and money in taking that advice and it went nowhere. Then we were called stupid and foolish and entitled for believing that advice. So why aren't Gen Z taking t…

> The original premise was that trades are where all the money is Nobody has ever said the "trades are where all the money is". This premise is flawed already. > My point is that we were previously told: the money is in college degrees, the money is in STEM, the money is in nursing. And people invested a lot of time and money in taking that advice and it went nowhere. It still is. It sounds like too many people have…

> Everyone learns the law of supply and demand before adulthood, or if they haven't then they shouldn't be going to college anyway.

Yeah, the problem is that the "law of supply and demand" is a simple metaphor to help children gently begin learning economics, not how anything actually works. Almost no price any real person encounter anywhere in their daily life is actually determined in any meaningful way by "supply" or "demand" -- unless you stretch the definition of those two words so thin they're practically meaningless. They're potential factors, sure, but only small ones.

As one of a bajillion examples, see how every hospital is short staffed (low supply) and desperate for nurses (high demand), while we also see them constantly lay nurses off or reduce hours (and nursing has consistently-fixed low salaries, despite the shortages). Same for CNAs, nursing home staff, etc.

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

#159

Post by SoftTalker »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #149
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…

> are no meaningful raises Doesn't the career path in the trades lead to owning your own business? Obviously, not for everyone. But the scope for advancement and riches is certainly there.

Yes, this is where/how you make money in the trades. Or you specialize in something esoteric and potentially dangerous like underwater welding or high voltage linesman.

If you stay as a line worker in a union you will do OK but won't be rich (unless you live frugally and save/invest a lot).

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

#160

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

Ekaros wrote: post #104
mrcrumb1 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relying on entrepreneurship for your livelihood and retirement as you age sounds like it'll only work for a select few

Unless there is massive population growth. Single older person can employ only so many juniors. Or other older people have to exit the market.

It's like a MLM spread across generations of workers. You recruit two workers and they recruit two workers each and then they recruit two workers each.... You even get to be your own {Personal Pronoun}Boss!
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