How many of you work in a trade and are you worried about the future of it?

Took me awhile to find a picture of your friend, but I finally found it. I have bad news. He's a pornographic beauty

OaOCr85.jpg
 
mb23100 said:
Nevada local 501
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Nice, I was local 12 for 6 years back when the housing market took a huge shit and just about killed any work that was going on in 2006-2008. Jumped halls and went to Laborers and started drilling, Local 1184.
 
Your friend can still expand his knowledge without having to go back to college. I have a b.s. In chemistry but decided that I would rather work a stupid meaningless job where I climb water towers and bridges. The wages are great. Insurance and retirement are awesome. I can travel if I want. No I'm not worried about being phased out. I own my home and support my family quite well. But hey.....I'm just a simple kind of guy what do I know
 
In my state, construction workers make more money than college graduates.
I've never seen such a high demand for trade workers in my entire life. The supply of highly qualified contractors is so low that painters are pretending to be plumbers.
 
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your "friend" should go to college, accumulate crushing debt, and claw his way up to middle management so he can get paid the same.
 
Sounds like you wanna bang this guy.

Just bang TS. Just bang.
 
I wouldn't be too worried just yet, especially if your trade involves stacking things.


In theory most jobs can be automated but the complexity of reality is hard to model and it's just as hard to build something that can deal with it and all its special cases.
I work in a large corporation but IMO we are still far away from automating the most simple jobs (i.e. desk jobs that involve mostly copy/paste level work), even though we are trying.
 
I used to be a field surveyor but moved into programming and automation of survey software/hardware. Robots are taking over and I'm showing them how to do it.

Legit it is unsettling is some ways. The role of field assistant doesn't really exist anymore because of robotic total stations/theodolites. Over the last 5 years the industry has shrunk significantly but the amount of work is increasing. Strange to be a part of.
 
kevy2pale said:
being in a trade which requires an apprenticeship but not college is the way to go right now... I just paid an electriction 75 bucks for less than an hours work and he doesnt have 90,000 in school loans
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Key guys are the best though. 60 EUR for opening a door which literally takes them 5 seconds (ok excl. transportation but still...)
 
jgarner said:
Trade skills are in an incredibly high demand right now. Too many young people think college is the only option for a career.

Welders, plumbers, ditch diggers, electricians....

All of those jobs are in a labor shortage right now and need people. You can easily make a decent middle class living doing one of those with a short stint in a trade school. I have a good friend who's been a lineman for a major power company and he's easily making $100k a year right now.

The downsides are union requirements, hard physical labor, and long hours. If you don't mind any of that, it's really not a terrible gig.
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Indeed, I would say that manual jobs that cannot be outsourced easily are probably a good career choice for a hell of a lot of people. On the other side I actually think that a lot of replacement of labour via tech in the future is going to be less physical work as the jobs that can be easily robotisized already have been but rather white collar positiona, a lot of which already are really just depending on legal defence(.i.e. a person legally needs to do the job like accountancy) to avoid replacement by computers.

Not sure about mine, photography overall is definitely on the decline due to the rise of ever cheaper and easier to use cameras reducing prices for the event market(weddings, etc) but I'm not sure its effecting the art end as much. What I do notice is that the physical product becomes ever more important to set yourself apart with almost 95% of my business coming from locations I have mounted and/or framed prints.
 
A smart driven guy in a trade can make great money. No drive and he'll make dick.

Uni is great at teaching you to learn but not overly applicable to real world. Degrees speak to your ability to learn new things.

STEM jobs are the only bankable jobs i see.
 
I work in the AC and refrigeration industry and good HVAC engineers are like rocking horse shit atm. We had to bring in an outside contractor recently and any one worth hiring was asking for £400-£500 for a days work.
 
I'm an electro-mechanical technician and am not worried about a computer replacing me. Can a computer replace an underground power cable AND plunge a toilet in the same day? I can!
 
If he is as smart and exceptional as you say, the trades will be a solid career for him. The bar is set pretty low so someone with half a brain and common sense can make a real nice living in the trades..trust me.
 
legkicktko said:
My best friend is twenty years old and works in a manual labor trade. He has no formal education. It took him less than 3 months to learn the trade, and he is very smart. He has always been great as a problem solver and has managed to become very proficient in his work.

However, he is sometimes reluctant to leave his comfort zone and I worry about the feasibility of him working this trade for the rest of his working life (that is his plan). I think he can do much better, in my opinion he is a different caliber of brain than the people he works with. I also don't think hanging around in the trade is as safe of a long term option as he thinks it is.

I want him to either start his own business, or go to school and secure some formal education. I wouldn't even mind if it wasn't formal education, I just want to see him expand his knowledge. I think it is kind of crazy to be so young, commit to such a simple career, and expect it to last forever. I think most of us should master several jobs throughout our lifetime. In addition, the elephant in the room when it comes to trades is that in many of them, the employees become disposable because the barriers to entry are non-existent (hence it takes three months to learn the trade).

What are your thoughts on the matter?
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Don't take this the wrong way but your friend with 3 months training doesn't have a trade.
 
I've got my own joinery business
It's a rough game and I don't really enjoy it but the money's good regardless
I don't know many people that pull the money I do especially for the hours involved and a 2 year college course
 
HIMBOB said:
A smart driven guy in a trade can make great money. No drive and he'll make dick.

Uni is great at teaching you to learn but not overly applicable to real world. Degrees speak to your ability to learn new things.

STEM jobs are the only bankable jobs i see.
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How long will this be the case though? I work with meteorologists (physics degrees) and I can easily see the supercomputer weather models putting these guys out of work in a decade or so.

Is there any indication robotics are progressing at the pace where a robot electrician or plumber is going to come put a bunch of tradespeople out of work in the same timeframe?

The guy who programs and designs the robot is in the catbird seat, for sure. But someone still has to fix the damn things for now...
 
TAK47 said:
I wouldn't be too worried just yet, especially if your trade involves stacking things.


In theory most jobs can be automated but the complexity of reality is hard to model and it's just as hard to build something that can deal with it and all its special cases.
I work in a large corporation but IMO we are still far away from automating the most simple jobs (i.e. desk jobs that involve mostly copy/paste level work), even though we are trying.
Click to expand...


Again I think were actually moving into an era were a lot more white collar jobs are going to be under threat as computing power/connectivity is obviously evolving so much faster than robotics.
 
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