As the average cost of college in the United States soars, more young people are being drawn to skilled trades. It’s part of a career rethink among members of Gen Z, who have been called the “toolbelt generation.”
As the average cost of college in the United States soars, more young people are being drawn to skilled trades. It’s part of a career rethink among members of Gen Z, who have been called the “toolbelt generation.”
Shit like this is scary. We have a fuck ton of guys (boomers mostly) getting ready to either leave the career entirely before retirement or retire normally once the economy takes a real dump.
Class sizes at my local are only roughly 20ish apprentices a year. I see us having a real hard time finding trade labor going into the future.
If demand climbs and there are people out of work, then people will learn to do the jobs as long as they aren’t as bad as working in a coal mine. I’m strongly considering learning a trade or robotics maintenance because demand is increasing rapidly.
I totally agree the demand will be there, provided the jobs are there.
We may need those skilled trades to maintain infrastructure but, if no one is opening the books for large projects to begin we won’t see a boom in training.
Also opening the wallet for wages. I can tell you that wastewater is seriously graying because nobody in the US wants to hire unlicensed or level 1s, and while getting your Operator L1 license might be a couple hundred dollars, getting L2 or L3 depending on state can run into five figures easy. Pay is also serious shit - Level 1 operators make basically the same as your local barista, and L3 barely makes $70-80k in most areas (for an idea, an L3 in most states should be able to design, source materials for, oversee the construction of, and run a wastewater plant unaided. They’re professional engineers in all but name.)
I was talking to a first year apprentice about his time in college and aside from him being a writer he studied that kinda stuff. I think he said it was “conservation” was the course he took in college. I asked him why he didn’t get into that field. He told me it was very competitive and there weren’t many jobs.
I know for other locals they pay your licensing because, allegedly they see the return on investment from their contractors. I guess it could also help if your local union has its own training facility.
All this to say, I think the barrier for entry is gate kept by the wealthy when there’s no union involved.