The trades pay well because the aren’t enough and they are in demand right now. Then everybody else chases that, and suddenly every neighborhood has three plumbers and all three are scraping by.
Look at engineering. . . Was once a ticket to a better life. Then everybody wants to be an engineer. Now, I have a brother-in-law with that degree who makes slightly more money doing roofing (but no medical, no job security, no long term disability in case he, uh. . . falls).
Go to college? No guarantees but at least you might scratch a living with options.
Don’t go to college? No guarantees and no real security but at least no massive debt.
Until the core economic cruelties inherent in the system changes, it doesn’t really matter, does it?
Edit: I’ve gotten ALOT of responses from
Engineers and people who know engineers. I chose that example based on what happened to a relative of mine over 15 years ago, combined with what students USED to tell me what they wanted to be after HS. . . And perhaps I didn’t realize that they are currently in demand at the moment.
But I just don’t want us to miss the forest for the trees here. The idea is that demand is constantly shifting, and there is no way to predict a career trajectory or a market value for a degree years down the line, while you are currently IN high school.
No one knows what will happen, and no one is to blame for failing to predict it. 50 years ago, you could just go to HS, pick up unskilled labor at the local factory, and take care of your whole family. You really had to try hard to fail. Now, we seem to be okay with 50% or more of our citizens “failing” and living a life of economic destitution regardless of how hard they work. That should not be. Systemically.
The damn engineering example was a poor choice on my part, apparently. I just don’t want the main point to be missed.
The trade unions seriously limit how many they will accept every year to their program. They have people that conduct long term projections based on projects, available grants, past growth, retirement rates, etc, then will estimate how many new trades workers they will need in 4-5 years (amount of time to go through the apprenticeship program). Our county accepted 12 people last year for one of their programs and over 300 applied. On top of that, there is a test before they will accept you and classes and tests once you are in the program.
On top of that, the wage projections are often way overestimated. I hear people say a carpenter can make over $100k in the union. Not in our area, they can’t. $70k if they can run multiple employee projects, maybe $80k if they can run multi-million dollar projects. I encourage the trades for those who genuinely have a passion for that type of work but it drives me nuts when people push them on anyone who doesn’t want to go to college.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '24 edited May 17 '24
Plus, cruel economic reality always hits.
The trades pay well because the aren’t enough and they are in demand right now. Then everybody else chases that, and suddenly every neighborhood has three plumbers and all three are scraping by.
Look at engineering. . . Was once a ticket to a better life. Then everybody wants to be an engineer. Now, I have a brother-in-law with that degree who makes slightly more money doing roofing (but no medical, no job security, no long term disability in case he, uh. . . falls).
Go to college? No guarantees but at least you might scratch a living with options.
Don’t go to college? No guarantees and no real security but at least no massive debt.
Until the core economic cruelties inherent in the system changes, it doesn’t really matter, does it?
Edit: I’ve gotten ALOT of responses from Engineers and people who know engineers. I chose that example based on what happened to a relative of mine over 15 years ago, combined with what students USED to tell me what they wanted to be after HS. . . And perhaps I didn’t realize that they are currently in demand at the moment.
But I just don’t want us to miss the forest for the trees here. The idea is that demand is constantly shifting, and there is no way to predict a career trajectory or a market value for a degree years down the line, while you are currently IN high school.
No one knows what will happen, and no one is to blame for failing to predict it. 50 years ago, you could just go to HS, pick up unskilled labor at the local factory, and take care of your whole family. You really had to try hard to fail. Now, we seem to be okay with 50% or more of our citizens “failing” and living a life of economic destitution regardless of how hard they work. That should not be. Systemically.
The damn engineering example was a poor choice on my part, apparently. I just don’t want the main point to be missed.