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I know some inspectors who earn near six figures and in south Georgia one can live very, very well on a six figure job but don't kid yourself, they work for it. To earn $75k to $100k range an inspector will putting in 60 hour work weeks and typical around here be spending an average of two nights a week in a motel. If working from the house most mornings you will be gone by 6:30 AM and it will be rare you get home before 6:30 PM making a 12 hour day pretty much standard but $85k is $85k so there you go.
Lot's and lots of driving in this job. Company provides vehicle, usually a small truck, pays for all vehicle expenses, along with overnight expenses when they happen, but in rural areas you can count on driving 500 to 1,000 miles a week. It's a job that is highly regulated requiring individual licenses issued by the state so you better do your job right but on the plus side an inspector is by himself 90% of the time so nobody ever looks over your shoulder.
I don't spend nights in a motel and my job doesn't involve driving... I am fortunate enough to live 11 miles from my employer and I have a daily commute that avoids traffic.
12 hour days is standard... I'm up at 4am, out the door at 4:40am to start at 5am... off work at 5:30pm and home at 6pm.
That's what I have to do to make the $85k ($1600-$1800 a week) but like I said, the job doesn't involve too much physical labor. I have overhead cranes for heavy lifting... everything else is done on a keyboard and with calipers.
Living the dream at 39...
Quote:
Originally Posted by rosie_hair
Did someone post that ad as a joke? The QA and QC guys who work under me make twice as much as that. Is this like a noname company or temp agency? How the hell does one support his family and pay rent with that kind of wage?
It's with the cheapest temporary agency in the Seattle metro area.
I'm tempted to call them and ask if they managed to find their QA guy for $13 an hour.
To answer your question... you can't living around here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kees
$10-$13 an hour for an aerospace QA? Yes this is with a cheap temporary agency but still... there isn't a QA on the planet that would work for that money... especially around Seattle.
My rent is $1500 a month. How would I even pay rent on $13 an hour? LOL
Yup. It's due to a long term trend of corporations outsourcing their work to small businesses, who bid for this work tooth and nail. The more of these small businesses there are competing for the work, the more likely they are to drive the wages down. Outsourcing used to be about sending work to companies that specialized in something. Then it became all about sending it to a company that could do the work cheaper than you... Usually because they were willing to pay their workers less. A great way to get around demanding unions indeed. We can see the results of that effort today as well.
The next step was offshoring as a method to further stifle domestic wages. Corporations used to keep many jobs in house because they wanted to preserve the secrecy of their methods. That changed a couple decades ago when American corporations were teaching the Chinese how to manufacture products and components with their methods, freely giving away trade secrets and cutting edge technology for all to see. There went decades of American competitive advantage, but the execs got their bonus and a pat on the back.
Of course, the progress made in technology made the average worker more productive. The idea of this progress delighted economists at first, who thought that more productive workers would equal better compensated workers. How wrong they were... The gains made were not shared. Instead, they were passed down to the customer, with the rest going to the top percentile of the leisure class. Small businesses meanwhile were forced to invest in this technology if they wanted to remain competitive. Large corps continued sending their work to the lowest bidder, who was loaded with debt, barely able to pay the interest, and only holding on thanks to an underpaid workforce.
Such rapid shifts in the labor market completely caught the average worker by surprise. This was something that no one had prepared for, because it had never happened quite so fast. Suddenly, people with useful, formerly in demand skill sets were competing for wages that were comparable to what they made in the beginning of their careers. With the progression of technology, some were lucky to be working at all.
Many of the people making good money today possess in demand skills that will fall out of favor tomorrow. Most will wonder how their valid effort led them to a career dead end. Well, they weren't the ones calling the shots. Companies needed them for a time, and these workers did their work as instructed... Until their skill set became obsolete, at which point, the company dropped them like a hot potato. Happens in many fields, and it will continue to happen for decades to come. The rate at which skill sets fall out of favor will only increase as technology exponentially becomes more sophisticated and capable.
As for the rest... There are a lot of people who really aren't worth a decent wage. Heck, in this climate, they are lucky to be working at all. Not much pity. Some have been given a chance, or several, and they blew it. A good wage shouldn't be handed out for showing up. It is something given after proving your dependability and worth. The entitlement attitude is what allows conservatives to paint all low paid workers with the same brushstroke... As people who choose not to advance themselves, or as people who did not make the right choices in life. Wages in America are not a political issue though. It's an economic and social issue that requires a bipartisan examination and approach. That is to say, don't hold your breath... And would you like fries with that?
I have a small business, but my experience is a little bit different. In my case, companies were willing to outsource work to large companies that charge less because they offshore (which gives lower quality but costs less) rather than pay more to small businesses that produce great quality. It wasn't the small businesses driving wages down, but the big companies who opted to use offshoring, technology, and much lower wages (about half) to reduce costs, took over small businesses and put them out of business, and have CEOs who have fat paychecks for themselves while the workers make half what they used to - again, with lower quality, but it costs less. End result - small business owners out of business and American workers out of work, or working for half what they used to make, lower quality product. But it's cheaper and I guess that's all that matters.
"If you don't have a job it's only because someone who is qualified chooses not to work."
I believe anyone who feels this way should have to go without a job/income for about a year just to have their attitude change. Going back to school costs money any way you look at it. When you're older, age is another obstacle to face even though most interviewers (if you get that far) will avoid the obvious questions. Too many people are on their high horse because they just happen to be employed. How many of us have money saved for emergencies (6 months), have so much job security that you can't get laid off/fired, or are even one or two paychecks away from homelessness?
Here in Indiana, unless you are a professional or in a skilled trade, you aren't going to make $20 an hour.EVER. If you did, you'd better guard that job with your life as there are a dozen more like you lined up to take it. The situation is actually worse where I'm from in Nevada as for $20 an hour, they might expect you to commit homicide for it.
Frankly companies are getting what they deserve for paying such low wages. Most people are doing just enough to keep their job and nothing more. They are tired as some have to work two jobs to earn a living and many more will likely quit as soon as a better paying position comes along.
I work contract maintenance around the country and I laugh when I see jobs advertising for pipe fitters and welders paying close or beneath $20 an hour. And then the outfits which are paying this little being surprised when they get either no responses or ex-cons who can barely turn on a machine. Again, these firms are receiving what they are paying for,IMHO.
Really? The only jobs I know of in Kansas under $10 are entry-level, no-skill jobs. If you're not entry-level, no-skill, I'm sure you could find something more than $10 an hour. My son has one year of college, is in his early 20s, and is making $14 an hour.
Some prefer we worship mother earth over providing good jobs for people. Oil and gas production jobs working on resources located in the US do not get outsourced, engineering jobs which are back off jobs might be not the production jobs. These jobs pay well because most don't have the technical expertise to do the job or they dont want to work in North Dakota or South Texas.
The classic come backs are we will replace them with green energy jobs, if so where are they and how do they pay and how stable with they be if gov subsidy is required to keep them going? Or the oil and gas jobs are not plentiful, most people want one job and their are more than that open and they pay well.
It pays well because it produces a high GDP impact by applying technology to produce a fundamental requirement of the economy which has high barriers to entry with the math and science and desire to control powerful forces safely.
$10-$13 an hour for an aerospace QA? Yes this is with a cheap temporary agency but still... there isn't a QA on the planet that would work for that money... especially around Seattle.
My rent is $1500 a month. How would I even pay rent on $13 an hour? LOL
Many companies skimp on paying for good QC. At my last job, the QC manager was a perma temp for 3 years. I doubt she made terribly much. I've seen tons of QC jobs with pay ranges around $10-$12/hr in this area. LOL, and they wonder why defects make it out all the time?
As an aside, QC missed a huge mistake at my last job. Something like 6 months of scrap made it into the customers hand. A major account was terminated instantly, and the company had an entire department sitting idle because of it. The entire plant was effected. Overtime was immediately eliminated. Oh ya, and it was one of their best paying customers. The company invested millions into modernizing their QC technology, but couldn't bring themselves to pay for decent QC workers
Many companies skimp on paying for good QC. At my last job, the QC manager was a perma temp for 3 years. I doubt she made terribly much. I've seen tons of QC jobs with pay ranges around $10-$12/hr in this area. LOL, and they wonder why defects make it out all the time?
As an aside, QC missed a huge mistake at my last job. Something like 6 months of scrap made it into the customers hand. A major account was terminated instantly, and the company had an entire department sitting idle because of it. The entire plant was effected. Overtime was immediately eliminated. Oh ya, and it was one of their best paying customers. The company invested millions into modernizing their QC technology, but couldn't bring themselves to pay for decent QC workers
That's amazing... and I'm not really surprised.
I know for a fact if I was making $10-$12 an hour as a QC I wouldn't really care what made it out the door... You get what you pay for. Call it what you want but that's the truth. I made $12 an hour back in 2002...
The fact they skimped on QC wages and it ended up biting them for millions of dollars is hilarious.
Hell, I've seen engineering positions in recent years that pay $25 an hour... and want to 3 to 5 years of laughably narrow experience. It's a joke. This nation's labor market is horribly broken and the low wages and high unemployment basically guarantees that a consumer driven economy will eventually grind to a halt.
3 months ago a recruiter called me for a Proe Mech Designer job with Kohler - at a pathetic $15 to $18 an / hr. I said it wouldn't work out at that rate so I said call me back at $25/hr.
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