Live data from Hacker News

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

npr.org

861–870 of 915 posts

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

#861
post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A lot of these threads devolve into "have you tried paying more" but I'd also like to highlight "have you actually tried telling Gen Z that". Trust me, once the all-in comp/lifestyle of a welder becomes better than say a paralegal, you won't need to tell anybody anything, they'll find you.

Highly doubtful, you don't just switch careers because comp suddenly rises, social status is very much associated with these decisions, maybe anecdotal but physical labor also has a stigma around it, people working in the field might not be the kind of people you want to be working with, etc. Entire game dev industry is built in finding passionate young people, underpaying them and putting them through the grinder ti…

[deleted]

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

#862

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're forced to sit in many offices.

I had a job like that once: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXh1tW16V-8

I had a job that had cameras BEHIND YOUR DESK! lol! There were like 100+ cameras for an office of 100 people.

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

#863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're forced to sit in many offices.

Animal cruelty. Not as bad as factory farming but similar in spirit in the restrictions on healthy living and basic biology. Don't get me started on school...

I know someone who works in medical billing (awful soul-sucking field) and they can't even read ON THEIR BREAKS because it will look like they aren't working.

ON THEIR BREAKS.

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

#864

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention RSI, eye problems, and other issues from performance-enhancing drugs lots of tech workers take to stay focused

Is that a thing? I don't think taking "performance enhancing drugs" is safe or allowed in my country, and I would definitely report coworkers to HR if I would find out they did. It's not fair to compete against someone like that.

Coffeine is the most used one. It is absolutely performance enhancing and really addictive.

Also couldnt help but laugh at you reporting people to HR. That is cute.

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

#865

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True that. Every job site I go to is filled with hardworking Mexicans and Central Americans.

Yet everyone complains how poorly houses are built these days...

Because the states where most of the construction workers are immigrants don't have licensing for tradespeople. They also have laws protecting the builders from "defective house" litigation.

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

#866

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> zero respect in society Is that really how you see it? I've never felt that way about the contractors coming to do work at my house. On the contrary, after I fork over a thousand bucks a day (minimum) for their expert work, I'm wondering if they're in fact a bit higher in the social hierarchy than I am. I feel a little self-conscious sometimes admitting that I move bits around on a screen for a living and have to h…

There is a very real fact of the matter that society can function without programmers, but society can't function without carpenters and other such craftsmen of the trades. In fact, the vast majority of occupations today are ones society could do without as far as hard requirements are concerned. So long as there are the farmers and the trades, society will work just fine; everything additional is a luxury.

not sure this is true, at our scale. managing our society would be really really hard using paper and snail mail.

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

#867
post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you mitigate burn out/mental health issues caused by lack of human interactions and working in the hugely competitive field?

Stop working from home, go to the office and socialise. Stop comparing yourself to Netflix $900k jobs. Take holidays. Stop side hustling some SaaS app that will never go anywhere. Get a hobby that isn’t focused on making money. HN isn’t the real world.

Ain't this the truth!

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

#868
post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 k…

Since you ignored my main point in favor of ad-hominems, I’ll repeat it: the idea that any degree will do is well supported by the fact that degree holders earn 2x over non-degree holders on average. The only relevant question in this thread about gender studies majors is what their income is compared to people without a college degree. It’s irrelevant what their income is compared to EE majors.

BTW, you used the word “value” with gender studies but then acknowledged in your last sentence that education has value that is non-monetary; please be careful about using language that conflates income with value (only mentioning since you did it in another comment as well). Gender studies might have people earning relatively lower incomes compared to some other degrees, but that doesn’t mean it has low value; as sub-branch of history and anthropology, and at a time when society is fiercely debating gender, gender studies is particularly relevant and useful and socially valuable today.

As far as underwater basket weaving, if you don’t have any actual examples and have to make up a fake one, then it sounds like the point you’re trying to make probably has no basis in reality, and probably isn’t true. That’s what use of the term “underwater basket weaving” by anyone tells me, and it tends to get trotted out more often on Fox News to make a straw-man point than by reasonable people having a reasonable discussion.

As far as Wikipedia links (or any references), it’s true that not everything needs one, but sometimes they’re helpful to support & clarify a discussion. It wasn’t clear that you knew underwater basket weaving wasn’t a degree, but I also added it because the article contains some interesting and humorous history behind the term “underwater basket weaving”. You could maybe use one or two links here in this thread to back up your claims, for example, about what “people” lambast & talk about, and what “widespread cultural awareness” exists. As it stands, you’ve stated a lot of opinion and assumptions without demonstrating much relevance. Who cares if someone somewhere lambasted their biased idea of a useless degree? Why should that have any bearing on what anyone else does? Answering those questions thoughtfully might require a link or two…

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

#870

Same labor shortage as everywhere that the government likes to pretend doesn't exist. 10 million working-age men can't or won't work. Of the ones willing to work, almost none want to spend their time learning skills for back-breaking, barely-middle class skills jobs which they'll be forced to retire from at 55 because their knees give out. Same answer for the shortage as everywhere that the economists don't want to h…

Yep. My partner and I come from blue-collar families. A major motivating factor for each of us getting a tech degree was that we saw how the blue-collar lifestyle physically destroyed our parents. The white-collar sedentary lifestyle requires some maintenance to stay healthy, but I don’t expect to lose any fingers or knees because of it.
Post reply on HN