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No. It isn't. Also, many people do not want to retire in their 50s or 60s. They are still vital and interested in being productive. Manual labor puts so much stress on one's body that many workers become disabled in their 40s or 50s. Repetitive stress disorders, back injuries, knee replacements and more, curtail the length of one's career and lifetime earning power.
Nurses incur some of those issues also, to be fair. My vision became worse in my 40s to the point where it was no longer safe for me to work. I went back for my master's in the social sciences and I have never been happier.
I was always interested in psychology and sociology, but I was dissuaded from becoming a Social Worker by my father.
However about the same time, late 60s and into the 70s, the education establishment began pushing the everyone should go to college mantra. The message to all students was you had to go to college to be a successful person and if you didn't you weren't successful (at least in how the education establishment defined "success"). High schools began cutting their shop and even home ec programs and adding more college prep curricula. While adding more college prep was good for those planning college, taking away the vocational programs provided less options for those who weren't.
Somehow the trades became associated with being less desirable and "beneath" the professions. We know that everyone is different and has different skills and different things they enjoy doing, suggesting the trades become, for some reason, considered both an insult to someone's intelligence and racist.
Did you make all this up? The "education establishment" doesn't exist. Colleges and universities have been around for hundreds of years. They haven't changed their "marketing." Instead, it was parents who changed their message to their children. Parents wanted to brag about the their child, the college graduate.
The changes in high school was due to budget cuts. High School didn't need to offer the trades because post graduate trade schools were beginning to crop up. Anyone can access trade school on their own without it being a part of high school.
I've never heard that the trades themselves were racist. However, people of color have experienced racism when trying to join trade unions.
Lastly, the trades are somewhat less desirable for people that want to work in a corporate environment. However, there are many people that don't like office work.
The other thing I would say is that most people would consider moving from say an attorney to an auto mechanic to be an insane move, even knowing nothing about either profession.
But the truth is that it shouldn't be. Both contribute to society and the auto mechanic in a lot of ways, more so.
If you've seen some of the things that attorneys I work charge $250/hr for... you'll appreciate your mechanic next time you get your brakes done.
I told my kids, you can work with your body or you can work with your mind. Hopefully you will have more than one way to make money, at least one using your body and one using your mind, because you never know what will happen. If you work in a trade, you could become disabled or just get older and not be able to do it anymore. If you work an office job, you could get laid off and be unable to find more work in your chosen field. If you also know how to fix cars or install roofs or whatever, then you have an edge over those who don't have those skills.
I work in a more intellectual industry, and my husband works in a trade. My young adult son works in a trade, which he started right after high school but is now seeing that he should also learn how to do some "mind" work as well because he's not loving the trade he's in. Still, he will have it to fall back on later should he need it. My daughter is graduating this year and is contemplating going to a trade school. She likes science and math but doesn't want to make that her career. We'll see what happens.
Why would anyone want someone who didn't do well in school to be working on their plumbing or electrical system? Those are not specialties for simpletons or the lazy. There's a lot of math involved in the electrician trade and construction in general.
Apart from the fact that there is more to "the trades" than being a plumber or an electrician, the truth is that many people who do not do well in school are non-traditional learners. Perhaps they have a learning disability or two or three.
People who do not do well in school do not automatically equate to being "simpletons" or "lazy.'
These are people who do well working with their hands. They can fix anything. They can put complex machinery together without following directions. They are extremely creative and usually visual thinkers. Books, writing, and math are often not their strong suits, but they have other intellectual strengths that traditional learners lack. Thank goodness for these people! The world needs more people like this, not more lawyers.
I am actually shocked that you would make a connection between not doing well in school and being dumb or lazy.
I have multiple graduate degrees and can discuss literature and ideas. I cannot wire or plumb my house or fix my car. People have different strengths and that is how it should be.
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Originally Posted by Caramelized Onion
I told my kids, you can work with your body or you can work with your mind. Hopefully you will have more than one way to make money, at least one using your body and one using your mind, because you never know what will happen. If you work in a trade, you could become disabled or just get older and not be able to do it anymore. If you work an office job, you could get laid off and be unable to find more work in your chosen field. If you also know how to fix cars or install roofs or whatever, then you have an edge over those who don't have those skills.
I work in a more intellectual industry, and my husband works in a trade. My young adult son works in a trade, which he started right after high school but is now seeing that he should also learn how to do some "mind" work as well because he's not loving the trade he's in. Still, he will have it to fall back on later should he need it. My daughter is graduating this year and is contemplating going to a trade school. She likes science and math but doesn't want to make that her career. We'll see what happens.
My husband is an engineer and it is and always has been a physically demanding job. This is an overly simplistic conclusion.
Last edited by calgirlinnc; 04-05-2021 at 09:14 PM..
I left my job working on Honda / Acura in the year 2,000 and spent the next 15 years in a different business which means I never had to work on EVs.
Having said that, I remember well the overwhelming complexity of late model cars, the automatic transmissions, the engines with their fuel systems and emissions systems, the heating - A/C systems etc. I'm sure that by now, 21 years later these systems are even much more complex.
Compared to that the new EVs must be quite simple, that is why they are nearly maintenance fee. I'm pretty sure that for an experienced tech today learning the work on EVs is going to be like a walk in the park. I had to work on golf carts and they were amazingly simple - more simple than my Stihl leaf blower.
Fixing all these Teslas - glorified golf carts ? - you will need computer skills, a special plug-in tester - and a few wrenches and screwdrivers. Then again, the brakes, tires, suspension system, drive shaft and CV joints, body hardware, steering components, audio system, lights, A/C, seat belts and power seats are all inherited from the ICE cars. I wouldn't worry about the current techs going hungry, but there could be less need for new techs in 15-20 years.
That's kind of what the company is telling them, according to the tech I talked to. That basically, they expect their service departments' work on ICE cars to become more of a niche service and there will be less need for staff in dealer service departments because over time there will be less and less churn for services like oil changes. I mean, how often do the power seats go out compared to needing a fluid flush? We'll still need things like alignments, hell - suspension technology comes from wagons. But we'll need to take in our cars for service less often the more they become electric.
This isn't coming from people with agendas; it's coming from Hyundai brass who know where they are steering the company over the next 15 years. The company has started passing this information down the chain so that dealers can start preparing their service staff mentally that this is not a "forever" job, and if they want to keep working for Hyundai as a career, they will have to develop alternative skills.
No matter what anecdotal evidence people produce of plumbers and welders making this and that, there's a pay gap between trades and white collar workers.
It's a gap that IMO shouldn't really exist or at least be lower.
The truth is that most white collar work is highly subsidized. In my field of work, padded government contracts allow for engineers to bill hundreds of dollars an hour doing sometimes ... lord knows what.
In my girlfriend's field, government money pays the owners to facilitate senior care. And in times like this ... they lay it on. Those are public examples, but the private sector is similar. You think corporations would pay lawyers or banks hundreds of thousands of dollars for acquisitions and transactions if there weren't crazy regulations all over the place saying they had to?
Trades OTOH are largely dealing with the cheap, wallet tight public.
Their salaries largely come directly from our pockets, and obviously, nobody here is going to overpay for a brake job or shower recaulk when they're trying to get to a million dollars retirement.
That is one of the negatives of working in private trades, but it's good satisfying work.
We have building codes, auto safety regs and whatnot that drives trade demand. My favorite was Texas and its yearly "inspections" for cars where they basically drive it to see if the brakes work and turn on the lights and blinkers, LOL. For that privilege you paid $60 for an annual sticker. That employed one guy at pretty much every auto service shop.
I mean, you've got to be pretty book smart to become an electrician if for nothing else you need to be able to mentally process all the regulations of electricity.
People who do not do well in school do not automatically equate to being "simpletons" or "lazy.'
These are people who do well working with their hands. They can fix anything. They can put complex machinery together without following directions. They are extremely creative and usually visual thinkers. Books, writing, and math are often not their strong suits, but they have other intellectual strengths that traditional learners lack. Thank goodness for these people! The world needs more people like this, not more lawyers.
You explained this well and I agree. There is a place for everybody to do the kind of work that suits their talents and abilities and contribute to society.
Except for maybe the homeless, but that’s another story.
Because Big Education can't profit via student "loans".
Trade school can be really, really expensive. Especially in Right-to-work states. Look at costs for private tech schools. In union heavy states, it can be free.
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Originally Posted by Futuremauian
The plumber who re-plumbed my condo charges $200 per hour. Not bad wages. Way more than I earn.
He doesn't earn $200/hr. He CHARGES $200/hr, but only sees maybe 1/3rd of that as earnings. And he probably can't bill 40 hours a week.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BugsyPal
Prior to 1980's trade/vocational schools were everywhere. Nearly all middle to large sized public high school systems had them and they served a very good purpose. Then came liberal democratic politics....
Idea of trade/vocational schools were deemed inferior and almost like tracking. College bound was liberal democrats word de jour, and thus there was a push by 1990's or so to move *all* students in that direction.
...
Some places like NYC didn't end vocational education for high school totally. Instead seriously revamped things to focus on careers that are booming (such as aircraft maintenance), but also providing a solid rounded high school course as well.
The irony of your statement is that vocational secondary school programs are strongest in liberal areas. Even your example is NYC keeping vocational education.
Michigan was very liberal with education until the DeVos's started throwing money at legislators. In the 90s, most high schools had vocational ed and all community colleges had vocational departments - up until the 80s, Michigan CCs were mostly vocational. My small high school, with 125 graduating classes, had a vocational department.
Massachusetts has a very strong secondary school system of vocational schools. Worcester, Boston, and Springfield have vocational high schools while the smaller towns utilize regional voke schools. There are 42 total voke high schools in MA.
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