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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.
In my zip code, you need 600 hours of classroom and 8,000 hours of apprenticeship over 4 years to become a journeyman electrician. The class work is not heavy in math. Then another 150 hours of classroom and a year on the job to get to master electrician.
I have an electrical engineering degree. That is heavy in math. Things like field theory and signal processing require calculus through differential equations. An electrician doesn’t need to know how to do a Laplace Transform. They instead need to have mastered a ton of practical knowledge. It’s embarrassing how lousy I am doing home hacker electrical work. I don’t have the practical knowledge of 750 hours of classroom and those years of hands-on.
Generally, trade jobs that pay well are doing things nobody wants to do. Fixing an HVAC system on an office building roof in 100F or subzero or pouring rain. Plumbing trashes knees and backs.
Absolutely. Add to that no bennies, no pension, lots of overhead, and pay for your medical insurance in many cases.
Really?
What trades are you looking at?
My next door neighbor retired last year from a 30-yr career as an HVAC tech. He mostly worked union jobs in high-rise office buildings. Steady work, he progressed to be a foreman and ended his career as a building maintenance superintendent. He always had benefits, paid vacation & holiday time each year, medical & life insurance, and a handsome defined benefit pension plan that didn't require much of an employee contribution.
At 62, he's got SS of around $2,000/month and a pension payment of around $2,800/month with a modest deduction for ongoing medical insurance. He collects that and now does contract work consulting for HVAC layouts and building start-ups/balancing ... he asked me about what he should charge for his services and I suggested $10,000/month + per diems if he has to be on-site. He was somewhat shocked at what I suggested he bill, but he's bid a number of projects and was pleasantly surprised with getting the projects. With a few projects behind him, he's now bidding even higher monthly rates for his projects.
As far as physical labor in his career years, the bulk of that work for him was done around 20 years ago. His investment in tools was a pocket protector for his pens/pencils/marking crayons and a handful of screwdrivers and a small wrench set; his employers provided toolboxes and tool kits for their shop work. Once he moved over to the controls/computer systems side of the biz, he was a working a desk job unless he had to do a site tour and take measurements of airflow and temperatures.
Similarly, I know of many electricians and plumbers and welders who enjoy the same benefits, medical and life insurance. The big difference I see for them is that they have 401K's with matching contributions as the defined benefit pension plans seem to be out of favor. It's not unusual for the guys in the extractive industries to knock down low 5-figure incomes with all the fringe benefits ... hard physical work for some of them, and again their tools are provided by their employer.
Also, I know various tradespeople in all the crafts that are fed/state/local employees. Suffice to say that they enjoy the comparable pay grade benefits that other employees get, with pretty handsome pension plans. They've got some formulas about "the rule of XX" ... the sum of their age and years of service. Some of them started out just after high school with that employer, not necessarily in the trade/craft that they now work in ... but they've racked up employment years since they turned 19 or 20. By the time they reach their mid-50's, they're fully vested and some have even retired with enough income at that time to travel and pursue other interests. One of them started out as a "building maintenance worker" (a janitor, in other words) and worked her way up through the ranks into management ... she oversees facilities maintenance in a federal cold-storage warehouse complex and knocks down a GS12 salary; she's now 64 and looking to retire in a year or so with over 45 years of service. Not too bad for not having that vaunted "college degree", no?
I had a co-worker years ago that was ... to be kind ... very challenged to do good work at a competitive speed in auto repairs. I heard about a "fleet mechanic" job opening at the city fire department maintenance shop and suggested he apply there. He got preference points for being a veteran, minority, and a service-related medical injury ... and got hired. He tried working at the same pace he did in the shop we had both been at, and got "told" by his shop-steward that he was making the rest of the guys look bad. He used to come visit me at the old shop when he was doing "test drives" of the SUV's and fire department cars ... usually a minor service, or brake job. He slowed down his pace to doing no more than 2 "brake jobs" per day. Imagine how poorly that would do in a retail environment ... he'd be out the door in no time. He was promoted to a "full mechanic" within a year and his pay rate, benefits, paid vacation, health & medical insurance, and defined benefit pension plan was the same as a Fire Department Captain!
Of course, one can find trades/crafts people who will work for less and there's GC's and sub-contractors who are always seeking the cheapest labor they can find for hourly wages. Some tradespeople are satisfied to do work in those jobs. Some aren't. Don't forget that a lot of projects specify Davis-Bacon wage scales for the Bids ... so those cut-rate contractors are required to pay the "prevailing wages" per the Fed guidelines. That's why you'll see those jobs like construction project flaggers getting $25+/hr type wages & benefits ... the people I know who do that type of work are very happy to do it and enjoy the seasonal nature/time off that they get. Some of them I know are unhappy about having so many work call-outs these days ... they'd rather have few work hours as they've exceeded their financial goals for the near term already this year.
Last year in the middle of the pandemic we couldn't watch the news for 15 minutes without a sob story about someone out of a job, waiting for the unemployment check, not getting it, and facing homelessness and hunger.
It was always a marriage counselor, travel agent, financial advisor, trade show coordinator, bartender, dog groomer, hair stylist, interior decorator, wedding planner, and so forth.
We watch the TV news daily, several channels, including the big three, ABC, CBS, and NBC. I read the Paradise Post and The Sacramento Bee daily on the Internet.
Not once, I repeat, I had not seen even once a story of a carpenter, roofer, A/C installer, electrician, auto mechanic, farmer, plumber, elevator repairman, truck driver facing hard times.
I spent 22 years as a Honda tech in Southern California. The longest I was unemployed was 3 days, because I thought it would be neat to have 2 extra days off in the middle of the week.
Last edited by mgforshort; 04-04-2021 at 04:22 PM..
I have a BIL that was a city bus driver. He could make 100K a year. He hated to retire cuz the pay was so good. But he was getting up in years and he was not going to be able to pass the yearly physicals.
In my zip code, you need 600 hours of classroom and 8,000 hours of apprenticeship over 4 years to become a journeyman electrician. The class work is not heavy in math. Then another 150 hours of classroom and a year on the job to get to master electrician.
I have an electrical engineering degree. That is heavy in math. Things like field theory and signal processing require calculus through differential equations. An electrician doesn’t need to know how to do a Laplace Transform. They instead need to have mastered a ton of practical knowledge. It’s embarrassing how lousy I am doing home hacker electrical work. I don’t have the practical knowledge of 750 hours of classroom and those years of hands-on.
Generally, trade jobs that pay well are doing things nobody wants to do. Fixing an HVAC system on an office building roof in 100F or subzero or pouring rain. Plumbing trashes knees and backs.
I guess it depends on how you define "a lot of math". It's all relative. I have a friend who started a journeyman electrician's program. There was algebra from the get-go. OK, this was someone without even a HS degree, but I had algebra and trig in HS, and I would have had a hard time with the material. So, go ahead and laugh. My point was, that you have to have your act together to get the journeyman's license; it's not for people who "didn't do well in school".
And fwiw, my friend had completed a basic program in electricity and appliance repair, and had a few years of experience working as an electrician in construction, so he had practical experience. That wasn't the problem.
I have a BIL that was a city bus driver. He could make 100K a year. He hated to retire cuz the pay was so good. But he was getting up in years and he was not going to be able to pass the yearly physicals.
Yearly physicals are for airline pilots. While I'd actually LIKE to see DRUG physicals for long haul truck drivers' and bus
drivers, I can't believe that, and you're not posting what state/province/canton this is required. And I seriously doubt the Teamsters would ever allow THAT.
Trades are an expensive school item, and a lot of safety involved: We have 15 lathes going at one time each class!! It's a political question of school priorities. I'm sad to see trades classes seemed to have dropped off in the last half century, just when we need them. For metal lathe you now need Auto-Cad AND be able to do calculations. It's not a way to drop and just graduate doing one year out of four of dumnhead math.
Unless most young people can have a job where they can be on fakebook most of the day, they want nothing to do with it.
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