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Blue Collar Recession

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Roughneck

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I've seen it alot as well. I've worked on onshore rigs in Oil & Gas for around 6 years after completing my plumbing apprenticeship years prior. The early 20 to mid 20s we get through here are just not willing to work hard. Just plain lazy. Work ethic is out the window.

Then there is extra work I pick up every now and then on weekends as a dogman. $70 a hour, plus travel allowances, meal allowances, phone allowances...average around $1600 before tax on a weekend!

Good money but you have to work for it....happy I dropped out of university lol

Edit: #stuckinscriptedlifestill
 
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Okraz1

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The same thing is happening in Australia.

There are a lot of developments happening at the moment all over the place probably because of foreign investment so opportunity is plentiful.

I'm a 3rd year electrical apprentice - just quit a job at a big company because i was becoming too specialised.

Working at a smaller company at the moment, getting paid below legal rates but tolerating it because I'm learning.

Once I'm qualified I'll go off to do my own thing. I'll make a progress thread here I think when I get to that point.

It's funny because even though there is abundant opportunity and companies willing to pay for skilled labour, I meet a lot of older tradesman who settle for working hard for a shit company for shit pay.

Baffles my mind, all they have to do is let the market know they exist and they can get a way better quality job for better pay - the ability to pick and choose. Fear and a false sense of loyalty is what keeps them stuck.
 

masterneme

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It's obvious that there's a blatant manipulation of the population.

Yesterday I had 2 videos on my Youtube recommendations, one with a woman saying that she would rather stay at home than accepting a 20$/hour job and another woman saying that it's unfair that the CEO made much more money than her and that something had to be done about it.

It looks like giving people participation diplomas and telling everyone they're special isn't working.

The levels of entitlement we're having are ludicrous.

And someone is benefiting from this non-sense...

Edit: Here in Spain you can see some entitlement too but we have a lot (hundreds of thousands) of highly qualified people for manual labour that can't find a job because there isn't any.

In comparison we have a shortage of entrepeneurs, that's what we need, and if you dare to create a business and offer jobs you'll be called fascist, thief and oppressor.
 
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Deleted52409

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The profit level of the work of these trades is starting to become as great as the sale of the house. So I win on both sides.

Can confirm. Did Floor installation for half a year. Boss was still making well over 6 figures despite the fact he ran the business so horribly.

Just got to be very careful with floor installation because you sometimes have to be an absolute perfectionist.
For example someone stepped in glue at one of the jobsites and as a result we spent 8 hours on a Saturday removing glue off the floor.
 

Jeff Noel

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Is there problem with the entire Economy? I’m making $20 an hour, which is high for a non factory job (300M+ company). With that pay me and my wife are doing fine now, but we don’t have any debt, we own everything. But we also don’t own a house.

I think that cost of living is a little daunting, we can’t find a house that in our budget unless it’s from the 80s. ($130k max) I can see where the idea of 100k salary’s with a degree seems appealing lol

In Quebec, Canada, employment issues are getting really dangerous. To the point McDonald's are closing. Subway closed its restaurant in a city nearby, McDonald's closed one of its two restaurants and is hiring people starting at CAD$15/hr. The problem (here, at least) is that the cost of living is skyrocketing. A not-even-decent house that you need to put CAD$50K in repairs after purchase goes for sale at $180K here, and people won't go lower than that. My parents house value is in the range of 240-260K and they bought it for $110K in ~2005. We're in quite a weird bubble though (with mines all around us, the gold prices are directly affecting our economy).

I'm earning $45K/yr right now, with my girlfriend's business ranging from 20-30K this year. my only debt is my financed motorcycle and some money I need to give back to my parents (total of $15K in debt). I do not drink, smoke, I don't go out in bars, I don't party. I stay at home during the weekends... and yet I can barely survive. I own a 13 years old car. At 26.80$/hr, I'm wondering what people do with lower salary than mine. I'm not complaining about my life though, I'm still "happy" (It should get even better once the plan I started executing yesterday starts showing results).

By the way, I would definitely enroll in a mechanic school. I know Hennessey does that and they end up hiring their students.
 

Walter Hay

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Crazy how kids today think they know it all and can waltz right into a high-level position without paying their dues and learning first
Damn...sound like a grumpy old fart :)
The reason they think that is because at schools from kindergarten up to college and university they are taught that. No student can ever be told they have failed.
I talked to trainers from every corner of the country. They all said the same thing.

There is a dire hiring shortage of responsible applicants that aren't carrying baggage ie: felonies, drug convictions, h.s dropouts, non GED, etc.

One of them said, "It seems the heaviest thing many want to push is a mouse."

It is sad that labor doesn't get the same respect as many white collar jobs. It is also sad that much of what we learn in school is of little use in the real world. I mean, what will help out the most in a real life scenario, knowing the names of Columbus's three ships or knowing how to balance a checkbook or changing a tire or your oil if you had to.
When everything is dished up on a plate, including "passes" in exams for which they have put in nil effort and in which their papers were full of errors, and they are constantly told how wonderful they are, that is a recipe for laziness.

I must say that in my everyday life, as well as in business, I use knowledge learned in physics lessons and mathematics. I have successfully challenged members of the younger generation to try to beat me in maths calculations. I use my head only, they use their calculators, and I finish first, with the right answer. The one I like best is to beat them to the answer to the question: What is the square of ..... (a number ending in 1/2)? Sometimes they have no idea what a number squared even means.
It looks like giving people participation diplomas and telling everyone they're special isn't working.

The levels of entitlement we're having are ludicrous.
I like that: "participation diplomas", i.e., they warmed the seat at lectures.

The parlous state of education among a generation who are fed the lie that they are much better educated than their parents is very evident in news reporting. General knowledge is lacking. For example: A national news broadcaster announced that the Pensylvania shooter was "wounded in the crossfire." RUBBISH! He was deliberately shot by police. That's not crossfire.

Walter
 
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Solais

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I don't want to stoke inter-generational warfare, but the fact is a lot of Baby Boomers made their kids into study robots. For some people that turned out OK, for most people it's not the way to go. Education helps you (as an individual) but does not provide others or the market with any value. Bragging about going to a top university these days or knowing particle physics is as asinine as bragging about your SAT/ACT score, IMO (yet I still see naive kids and their parents do it).

Blue collar work was heavily looked down upon/denigrated by current 45 - 65 year olds and now my cohort (20 - 32 year olds) just wants to sit home, blog about travelling/vandwelling/the latest hipster trend, or stream Twitch/Youtube videos because it's "their passion."

I recently read a survey of Generation Z's "favorite careers" - shit like being a doctor or therapist ranked pretty low, while "Youtube celebrity" ranked #1. Rofl...

Really amusing and pathetic at the same time. Trying to be as objective as possible - EVERYONE shares a bit of the blame: younger people for being so naive/ignorant, universities for being overpriced, useless indoctrination centers, and older people for misleading/coddling their kids.

I'm not going to complain though. The fact that every young person is rushing to these crowded digital fields (blogging/streaming/writing shitty eBooks/creating shitty video courses coz "muh passive income") means WAY more opportunity for me.

The old farts who still run typical blue collar businesses are near retirement and I will gladly take their place (and even improve on what they have).

Can't complain how this is panning out, and I'd rather keep quiet too.
 
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collin_e

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Blue collar work was heavily looked down upon/denigrated by current 50 - 65 year olds...
Maybe it’s just geographical; but I’ve never met a 50-65 year old who said anything bad about blue collar. Quite the opposite actually. I live in an area where just about every blue collar business is owned by an older man that started with nothing.

The business my family owns was started by a guy that grew up durning the Great Depression and made millions in the salvage yard/repair shop business. A lot of the people that I deal will have the same mentality though. I’m thankful for the lottery I won being in the automotive industry.
 

rollerskates

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I've thought about this a fair amount--why it's so hard to find employees to do physical jobs. I'm not sure if younger people think blue collar physical work is beneath them or if they are so out of shape from sitting on their behinds and staring at phones and video games all day that they physically can't do jobs that involve manual labor. It's a heckuva lot easier to sit on your behind.
 
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Solais

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Maybe it’s just geographical; but I’ve never met a 50-65 year old who said anything bad about blue collar. Quite the opposite actually. I live in an area where just about every blue collar business is owned by an older man that started with nothing.

The business my family owns was started by a guy that grew up durning the Great Depression and made millions in the salvage yard/repair shop business. A lot of the people that I deal will have the same mentality though. I’m thankful for the lottery I won being in the automotive industry.

My parents are almost 60. They definitely pushed the "blue collar work is bad" mentality onto me, because I was "so intelligent" and "deserved better." Chances are, there are millions of parents who think the same way.

Almost all of my friends who still live in California (thank god I got out less than a year ago!) are in white collar jobs. Not a coincidence.

My last venture ended up a failure - I know what I did wrong, and I'm jumping right into a blue collar service field now. This thread confirms the need (thanks everyone!)
 

Merging Left

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Maybe it's marketing issue. Not marketing for business, but marketing for employees. How is it that Amazon and Tesla can hire coders, work them into the ground, and have them get up and ask for more? Amazon and Tesla are known for expecting their employees to give everything to the business, and they're constantly flooded with applications.

Maybe you just need to make blue-collar work look fun/cool. Is being part of a young, dynamic team exciting for many people? Maybe getting cool swag, bright uniforms, and high-production ads is what a cleaning business needs to attract talent. Maybe you need to actually offer equity, and market yourself as a "disruptive start-up set to blow up the cleaning biz!" and get some press about how progressive you are.

Find a way to have employees competing to work for you. Not the other way around.
 

JunkBoxJoey_JBJ

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I definitely think we need more schools or certificate programs teaching and giving opportunity for actual hands on skills and also a mind-set shift that blue collar and working jobs are not taboo.

EXAMPLE:
Here you will learn a trade-skill as your course major. You could also take classes on things like; how to iron, sew, do laundry, balance your checkbook, be grateful, increase self-esteem, dating skills, how to talk to someone and make eye contact, how to put away your cell phone with confidence, basic public speaking techniques and more.
 
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Kruiser

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Maybe it’s just geographical; but I’ve never met a 50-65 year old who said anything bad about blue collar.

Definitely depends on who you hang out with. If I told a lot of my friends and peers that I really don't care if my kids go to college or not and that I'd be fine if they wanted to get into the trades, I'd be looked at like I had suggested I'd be fine if they were homeless crack addicts. Class prejudice is real (and real stupid).
 

garyfritz

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Maybe it's marketing issue. Not marketing for business, but marketing for employees. How is it that Amazon and Tesla can hire coders, work them into the ground, and have them get up and ask for more?
The cool factor definitely plays into it, but so does good ol'-fashioned CASH. A friend of my son works for Amazon, and at 25 she's making $150k/yr. A lotta people will work their butts off for green like that.
 
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B. Cole

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I’m experiencing fierce competition against the private sector to hire qualified tradesmen right now. The economy is booming and there is more work than workers, blue collar guys are making top dollar and I can’t attract them to work in local government. Running about 10% vacancy, have been for over a year.

Qualified candidates already have great paying jobs, the applications I’m getting are all college kids working at Pizza Hut. Most can’t unclog a toilet. Good MEP guys can name their price right now, had 2 different HVAC technicians walk out of interviews this month because we couldn’t offer more than $55K. Was a Journeyman’s position, not even a Master’s.
 

Solais

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The issue is not whether employers are properly marketing jobs as being "hipster" or "trendy" to younger people. The issues are

1) many (not all, but a huge chunk) of older people denigrating blue collar work as "labor for the stupid people"
2) high school career counselors who have never worked a private sector job in their entire life telling kids to "follow their passion" and to "discover themselves" in college

You have to remember that at the ages of 16-18, kids have highly malleable brains and are most susceptible to false/misleading information. Someone in their family needs to lay out the basic realities of supply/demand and how markets work instead of shrouding the ugliness of reality with pixie dust.
 

B. Cole

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The issue is not whether employers are properly marketing jobs as being "hipster" or "trendy" to younger people. The issues are

1) many (not all, but a huge chunk) of older people denigrating blue collar work as "labor for the stupid people"
2) high school career counselors who have never worked a private sector job in their entire life telling kids to "follow their passion" and to "discover themselves" in college

You have to remember that at the ages of 16-18, kids have highly malleable brains and are most susceptible to false/misleading information. Someone in their family needs to lay out the basic realities of supply/demand and how markets work instead of shrouding the ugliness of reality with pixie dust.

Our children's mentoring majority. A sea of slowlaners and sidewalkers. Whatever they don't learn from their teachers, they learn from their peers. Scary.
 
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ReEngineeringME

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Yes, there is a shortage of blue collar workers in a lot of industries. I'm in manufacturing so my bias is toward that industry. In my experience it's due to trade skills being taken out of public schools, most kids don't even know about the blue collar options. Growing up I heard a lot about offshoring which when you're a slowlaner that doesn't inspire job security. Also, there is the allure and societal push towards college and white collar jobs. But in all honesty there is a bright side. When you can't find enough workers there is opportunity for disruption. You can increase the yield of the current work force and or get rid of the waste in the processes surrounding the value added processes. From my own personal experience (at my slowlane job) change is slow and comes with a lot of resistance, but the changes can really impact the bottom line.
 

ALC

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That's partly due to teachers and school and parents preaching the beautiful world of High Tech / E-Connected things, which is fully packed of people aswell as Marketing, etc...while bluecollar is widely open for those who have the balls to work their butt off and learning a bit about marketing his business and running a business.

I would be in a sensible situation right now i would jump right on blue collar jobs / businesses, without a doubt.
We also have the best tool ever, internet ! Youtube is free and you can learn anything and everything on this platform, still people find excuses.
 

Tommo

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The same thing is happening in Australia.

There are a lot of developments happening at the moment all over the place probably because of foreign investment so opportunity is plentiful.

I'm a 3rd year electrical apprentice - just quit a job at a big company because i was becoming too specialised.

Working at a smaller company at the moment, getting paid below legal rates but tolerating it because I'm learning.

Once I'm qualified I'll go off to do my own thing. I'll make a progress thread here I think when I get to that point.

It's funny because even though there is abundant opportunity and companies willing to pay for skilled labour, I meet a lot of older tradesman who settle for working hard for a sh*t company for sh*t pay.

Baffles my mind, all they have to do is let the market know they exist and they can get a way better quality job for better pay - the ability to pick and choose. Fear and a false sense of loyalty is what keeps them stuck.
Well put Okraz1, I've seen the same lazy,fearful mindset all over. Also had it myself to be honest, way back though.
 
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LuckyPup

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No welders, no fabricators, no machinists, precious few engineers, draftmen, detailers.
AND
everything in this country has to be replaced in the next 25 years. Not just roads and bridges..... the plant that makes bread / window cleaner / toilet paper tubes. All that piping, all those tanks, all those machines. Are all in terrible condition.

I go talk to middle schools. Talk to them about college isn't for everyone and if they are good with their hands they can make really good money. I take scout groups to the local machine shops. Them and their parents get to see machining centers, lasers cutting steel. The kids are amazed and their parents didn't even know this place existing 5 miles from their houses.

We are fighting the advertising dollars of college football and an entire generation that put a stigma on blue collar. Just have to expose kids to the opportunity and let them decide for themselves!!

Need money for a side hustle, go down to the local fab shop and pass a drug test. You can work all the hours you want!

Could be a good INE ...... a long play on getting welding and fabricating talent / staffing for local shops. You start on the groups in 8th grade and have weekend fab-a-thons at local shops while also partnering with the local trade school. Buy the local middle school a 3d printer in return for talking to their kids and their families. The kids that are not making A's or would later consider the military are your first pass. The long play is teaching the local region that being a welder is cool and you can make bank.
LOVE this!
 

ZF Lee

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I'm not going to complain though. The fact that every young person is rushing to these crowded digital fields (blogging/streaming/writing sh*tty eBooks/creating sh*tty video courses coz "muh passive income") means WAY more opportunity for me.
I'm worrying whether doing crypto (making a blockchain company, not investing in it) might go the same pathway.

I remember talking to a university recruiter from Australia, years ago, who encouraged me to look into marine engineering and naval architecture... building ships. He said it was an ageing industry where folks are getting old, needing new blood to come in. And Australia is pretty much the centre for ships in the region.

I didn't go for it since I had accepted another offer for pre-uni studies, but now to think of it, it might not be a completely bad idea to hop into such an industry and do something. A huge entry barrier and not as crowded as my current business course lol. I did have a Slowlane bias against that route, but now, when I know better, I might have been wrong.
 
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andviv

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The young generation is lazy, naïve and think that they will have a money drop by magic and won't have to work another day in their life.
Yup, courtesy of who raised them and told them exactly that and how special they were.

But we also don’t own a house.
Millennials. Walking around like they rent the place.

Construction jobs in Chicago are starting to pay $30 an hour starting - and even at that price have trouble finding people
My uncle came visiting from South America and made the comment that he kept finding "Help Wanted" signs everywhere.

In comparison we have a shortage of entrepeneurs, that's what we need, and if you dare to create a business and offer jobs you'll be called fascist, thief and oppressor.
Spain has a terrible mentality of entrepreneur vilification. I visited and everybody complaint about no jobs but wanted benefits that no real business can afford.

but the fact is a lot of Baby Boomers made their kids into study robots. For some people that turned out OK, for most people it's not the way to go.
105%
 

AgainstAllOdds

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My uncle came visiting from South America and made the comment that he kept finding "Help Wanted" signs everywhere.

Yup.

If you're struggling to make "good" money, then drive out to the industrial district in your city. Help wanted signs everywhere, and for a lot of the jobs, the sole hiring requirement is to show up for work and not be a complete idiot.
 

Ksalazar

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I’ve been in the service industry my entire life, and I’ve notice a continuing trend among every industry; you can’t drive past a business without a help wanted sign. Even state townships have big signs “looking for help”.

Being young, I don’t remeber much, or ever paid attention to things like this, but this trend worries me. We’ve been looking for an auto tech for over a year, every shop is looking. Heck a shop in Pittsburg is looking for 74 people to hire.

I’m not sure if it’s a generational trend but it just kinda sickining to me that blue collar jobs have a workforce shortage..


I am currently am in a trade myself and I did notice that as well. There is a huge demand for people in many trades due to the gap that occurred I believe in the 70s. There is huge age difference in many trades most of the people that are experienced are about to retire. Alot of states RI being one of them have begun training large amounts of younger people in different trades to fill in the demand. This post has actually given me some business ideas.
 
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luniac

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as much as office work has sucked 5 years of my life so far, it was the daily view of my cubicle that sparked the F*ck This Event that began my fastlane journey.

If i became a plumber i may have aimed lower in life overall.
My hardships make me wanna knock my life out of the park lol funny how that works.
 

Ravens_Shadow

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In high school I did 2 years of diesel mechanics and also had an internship repairing boats and rebuilding the motors. I also took one full year of engineering in high school as well and learned to read mechanical drawings.

After dropping out of college, my dad helped me get a machinist job even though I had zero experience running milling machines and lathes. Within a week, I was trained enough to be comfortable with all of the machines and did what I had to do. The pay was quite good for a 19-year-old. The job sucked due to the heat but couldn't beat seeing a wad of cash at the end of each week.

Now I sit around and run my software company, but still find myself working on my wife's car or building mechanical contraptions as a hobby.

I wish that after 9th or 10th grade they would say hey, are you going the trade route or the college route? If you're going the college route, stay here. If you're going the trade route, you get sent to a training center to be trained on whatever it is you're interested in and stop taking other useless classes.

At my school we had a "career center" where we could learn:

  • Diesel Mechanics (what I took) - me and 3 other students. Talk about a shortage.
  • Automotive Repair
  • Automotive Body work & painting
  • Welding + Pipe Welding
  • Mechatronics
  • Masonry
  • Hair salon
  • A few other things
Each of these classes lasted from 11th grade to 12th grade and you had the chance to be at least partially certified in your trade within 2 years of schooling.

After going through this, I realized that most people just don't want to do hard work. They're scared to death of it or look down on it.

Some of the best times I had in school was working in the shop.
 

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