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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

#451

Post by throwawayacc3 »

tpmx wrote: post #57
garciansmith wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plumbing strikes me as one of the very last manual jobs that will be automated, if ever. Every plumbing issue, even the most basic, is different due to the fittings and hardware being used. For example, I've been putting off hiring a plumber to replace the old drum trap behind my bathtub with a p-trap. I can't even fathom how a robot would go about doing such a thing when a plumber needs to sit there and think about…

Because our current houses and fittings are largely ancient, non-standard and ad-hoc.

This isn't true. Fittings are built to a standard spec, and things like PVC and PEX fittings are relatively brand new.

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

#452

Post by ttymck »

dragonwriter wrote: post #433
Raidion wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a gradual shift that's no so gradual when looking at the block of population. Gen X are those that didn't have any digital connectivity while growing up. Millennials grew up connected through text/chat/email/very early social media, but without being constantly connected to the internet. Gen Z has grown up being connected and with information and entertainment available the time. Generations share a "core" of ex…

> Gen X are those that didn't have any digital connectivity while growing up. My (parents’) CompuServe and (due to living in the Central Valley but most of the BBS’s I had info on being in the Bay) phone bills fron the 1980s tell a very different story.

I think the OP was referring to majority or plurality of Gen X, not necessarily dragonwriter's, or Central Valley's experience.

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

#453

Post by com2kid »

peruvian wrote: post #212
eddsh1994 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Tech people always say this but forget that being a plumber means being on their knees wading thru poop water and likely being unable to work when you reach a certain, fairly young age. I get it, trades are important, but let's not glamorize them.

> Tech people always say this but forget that being a plumber means being on their knees wading thru poop water and likely being unable to work when you reach a certain, fairly young age.

Depends on the type of plumber.

Plumbers doing boiler installs or hydronic heating systems aren't dealing with toilets at all, they are doing applied engineering and math however.

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

#454

Post by MagicMoonlight »

I would absolutely be up for doing a skilled trade as a side job but the problem is I'd have to do a really long course and work as an unpaid slave laborer... to learn how to stick a pipe into another pipe.

All these weird trade jobs have these ridiculous requirements as if it's actually mentally challenging to learn them. If you want to shoe horses you need to do a fucking bachelor's degree equivalent in horse shoeing. If you want to remove ingrown toenails it's the same. I could learn that shit in a week and you're telling me I'd have to spend half a decade gaining a piece of paper just because they want to pretend it's hard? You're hammering nails into a fucking horse.

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

#455

Post by Bloating »

pleb_nz wrote: post #338
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…

Is this more of a US issue? I'm ex tradesman and know a lot of tradespeople in my part of the world and they're often some of the best off and fittest people I know. Being on your feet all day and moving around seems to be good for the human body rather than sitting behind a desk for 8 hours which we now is incredibly bad for you.

Its a reddit issue

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

#456

Post by com2kid »

prottog wrote: post #346
cwkoss wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ratio of power between labor and capital has swung hard toward capital over the past 30 years. I think the number of people who become "wealthy" due to salary income alone is probably small and shrinking. You used to be able to buy a house in 12 months instead of 18 months if you worked overtime. Todays economics make it so working overtime lets you buy a house in 13 years instead of 17 years.

> You used to be able to buy a house in 12 months instead of 18 months if you worked overtime. Todays economics make it so working overtime lets you buy a house in 13 years instead of 17 years. Actually, if 50 years ago you used to be able to pay for a house in 18 months, today you should be able to pay for a house in ~30 months: https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-inco... . You're thinking of a t…

> Blame the Fed and idiotic policies at every level for that, anyway;

Many of these policies were voted in at the local level by the populace. It isn't the government's fault if every city counsel member who supports upzoning loses their next election.

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

#457

Post by vgatherps »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #454

I would absolutely be up for doing a skilled trade as a side job but the problem is I'd have to do a really long course and work as an unpaid slave laborer... to learn how to stick a pipe into another pipe. All these weird trade jobs have these ridiculous requirements as if it's actually mentally challenging to learn them. If you want to shoe horses you need to do a fucking bachelor's degree equivalent in horse shoei…

Programming isn't mentally hard either, it's just hitting keys on a keyboard! There's tons of tutorials online, stackoverflow, and even AI an do it for you now! Could easily learn it in a week, don't see why people spend time studying it or get paid so much,

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

#458

Post by yamtaddle »

SideQuark wrote: post #97
moe091 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, have you seen how much pay has gone up in low-skilled jobs? There are signs at all the local businesses in my area offering $15+ an hour for cashiers and fry cooks and whatnot. The same kind of jobs I worked 7-8 years ago for $8 an hour. They are taking advantage of supply and demand to force jobs to pay them a closer-to-fair wage, instead of selling their time for less than it's worth and perpetuating the pr…

>I mean, have you seen how much pay has gone up in low-skilled jobs? There are signs at all the local businesses in my area offering $15+ an hour for cashiers and fry cooks and whatnot. The same kind of jobs I worked 7-8 years ago for $8 an hour. They are taking advantage of supply and demand to force jobs to pay them a closer-to-fair wage, instead of selling their time for less than it's worth and perpetuating the p…

> Those jobs also result in products being more costly, so that the current low end wages are actually lower nominal value.

If low-end workers' wages double and that makes costs go up 10%, or even 20%, pretty sure they're still ahead.

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

#459

Post by hinkley »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #454

I would absolutely be up for doing a skilled trade as a side job but the problem is I'd have to do a really long course and work as an unpaid slave laborer... to learn how to stick a pipe into another pipe. All these weird trade jobs have these ridiculous requirements as if it's actually mentally challenging to learn them. If you want to shoe horses you need to do a fucking bachelor's degree equivalent in horse shoei…

> 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 to their friends about it so much that their friends and/or their friends' kids (well hello there) stat to think they must be nuts.

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

#460

Post by philippejara »

keybored wrote: post #397
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…

> 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. Selling your brainpower meaning managing the people who will sell their health and body as tradesmen. A minor racket.

those people are free to work as independent tradesman, many do.
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