Blue Collar Recession

[MJ DeMarco]

Darn, you mean you can't hire someone with a degree in Gender Studies and a minor in 16th Century Poetry?

 

[socaldude]

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..

It's pretty much a generational thing. Where our education system has basically looked down on these kind of "dirty jobs". And tries to push as much people into colleges where the skills taught there are basically worthless.

And yet they are just as respectable and pay just as much as white collar jobs.

I graduated a few years ago with a degree in finance and was completely worthless.

I was better off becoming a plumber, welder or mechanic etc.

 

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[ZCP]

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.

 

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[million$$$smile]

I just returned from a national conference for apprenticeship coordinators (teachers) for the building trades.
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.

Low supply and higher demand creates higher wages in the skilled trades which of course transfers back to the end user. Short of robotics taking over, which eventually will happen in many areas, wages will continue to grow, just because of a labor shortage. Plus, the skills learned can be implemented in so many different ways in real life.

I don't see how it can hurt anybody to have a trade that they could fall back on if needed....

 

[Ninjakid]

It's not so much about money, it's more of a class system.

The middle class are the academics, they're the ones who make their kids go to college. They see blue-collar jobs as beneath them. So even though their kids won't be able to support themselves with their degree, at least it looks good to all their friends.

Behold the cycle of delusion.

 

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[collin_e]

How do you solve a problem this big? We ended up hiring a less experience mechanic; and I’ve been working with him and teaching him. Problem with auto mechanic is the steep learning curve, but he’s been doing well.

I’ve though about opening a “tech school” that actually teaches you real world auto mechanic, not this $40k “certificate” that says you can use fancy equipment, repair shops know as UTI, OTC, etc.

 

[Get Right]

That's the nice thing about capitalism. It will balance out if given enough time (and not manipulated).

As a side note, there are ways for you to profit from this. You can produce some of the work in-house (for cheap) as opposed to outsourcing (getting more expensive). This was a normal practice until the 90's when outsourcing become more mainstream as a cost cutting measure. By moving this work back in-house, you can actually take financial advantage of this sway in economics.

For example: I build houses so my main stream of income is from the sale of the house. Recently though, I have brought several trades back in-house. We install our own interior trim, flooring and interior painting etc. 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.

 

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[Jeff InfoPreneur]

I'm also afraid that we are raising a generation of "entitled" kids who have been convinced they should walk right into an $80K+/yr job without learning the ropes and paying their dues...when I started at $3/hr I was happy to have a SHOT and knew right from the start that this was just the beginning. Each year I worked my way up, when I hit the top, I moved to another company until I realized I needed to be running my own gig -- but that took 20 freakin years...and all the jobs prior taught me valuable lessons about business, customers, marketing, etc...

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

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..[/QUOT

 

[minivanman]

It hasn't always been like it is nowadays in America. It's nothing like it was back in the 70's & 80's.... not even close. This is a very large part of the reasons I sold my cleaning businesses. In 1 city, the city of Dallas they are in need of over 20,000 construction workers. It's NEVER been that bad there in history. In Fort Worth I don't know what the numbers are but I'd say we are almost as bad so what that means is that within 30 minutes, we are in need of over 40,000 construction workers and that does NOT include the other 100 towns within this 1 metroplex. I'm involved with several businesses and almost all of them can't find much help and if they do find someone, it seems as though they are the low end of the totem pole. I can usually help the business owners work with a low IQ but it's really difficult to work with lazy people. We don't need to give the millennials a break.... they stay on break.

This thread just hit me.... I'm always helping to get more customers but I need to change my focus to helping them get more and better workers. I don't know why I've been set on getting the customers and letting them worry about getting the workers.

My grandson has his head set on being an auto mechanic but I've put it in his head to not work for someone else, own the business. Even if it's just him. The 1 thing I try to get through his head is that I am not like everyone else. Don't think you can sleep until 11am if you want. I'm just afraid he will turn 18 and think, well grandpa sleeps until 11am and makes a lot of money so I can do that too. I'm always telling him stories of the cleaning business so he realizes I worked 24/7 for almost 20 years. He is one of the smarter people in the family so I think he will do just fine.... but ya never know....

 

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[Get Right]

Are you training your own staff from scratch, or hiring people with years of experience?

I try to hire people with the right work ethic. Experience is less of an issue for me because we provide a very hands-on/teaching environment. Find the right person, pay them a nice rate and train them to do more.

 

[jpanarra]

Yup, I saw this trend coming awhile ago when I was back in HS in 2005ish. All of the 'troubled' kids ended up going to Voc. I wanted to learn some things over there but my teachers discouraged me because i was an 'A' Student and I will do well in college.

I still fell for the rat race and went off to school and got a chemistry degree and a MBA to boot. I now hold a job that can afford a house, kids, and my wife to stay home if she wanted but at the same time I have looming student loan debt thats growing and it feels like it could've been avoided if i just went straight to machining or welding.

I taught chemistry a few years ago, and I spoke against the crowd a bit. I was surprised that even teachers also shame the kids that go to Voc and make them want to drop out and end up being burdens. I should make this clear, I taught at a Deaf school, my thinking was trades are the best way out for those kids not some college degree and I was faced with some backlash for supporting kids to working after school and giving extra credit and slightly less homework for having a paycheck. (I went back to the workforce because the chemist paycheck is significantly much more than teaching)

My thinking was when will the knowledge of 'moles vs mass' will help their confidence and success.

Its been a long term goal of mine to be able to make a service/bluecollar job where I can hire Deaf people and give them a real shot to build a skill and earn money instead of living off disability welfare. The truth is, i haven't started it because I dont know what just yet.

I've noticed a trend, people that can't work usually really want to work... people that don't want to work will sink to the bottom regardless of their disability/race/sexual identity.

 

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[andviv]

Another challenge is for girls.

When I asked about trade schools for my daughters, people thought I was out of my mind. Women can’t do that type of work, everybody knows that!

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

Construction jobs in Chicago are starting to pay $30 an hour starting - and even at that price have trouble finding people.

$60k a year.

No reason for a lot of people to go to college.

 

[million$$$smile]

$60k a year.

No reason for a lot of people to go to college.

Ya but I want that piece of paper to hang on the wall, and owe 100k in student loans to start my career.
Why would I want to get paid on the job in an apprenticeship program while I'm learning????

10 Great Jobs That Start With An Apprenticeship

 

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[GreasyGinger]

As a Auto Tech I love reading this post. Being a millennial tradesman I am finding a lot of the things said about my generation kinda funny and naive.

My dad was in tool and die, so he was a tradesman. I grew up in an affluent neighborhood where all of my high school peers were preached the university route. My high school didn't have any technical courses and basically made you feel as if going into the trades was giving up. I never liked the idea of university, mainly the fact of being forced to enroll ( and pay ) for courses I have no interest in just to get the "well rounded" education

I took a couple of years after high school to "find myself", lived in the UK, worked a couple of manual labor jobs, worked behind a bar. I came back home and decided to forge a career path. Gave up on the "dreams" of high education and started an apprenticeship at the General Motors dealer.

In certain provinces in Canada you get to fast track certain trades because of the lack of people going into the trades. So 24 months later and I'm a federally licensed Automotive Technician that can get a job anywhere in North America.

I moved to western Canada where the wages are double and in my first year made 6 figures. I've been out here for about 5 years. Unlike other guys in my trade though I have recently taken am interest in business and entrepreneurship and have really noticed that my job is in super high demand, especially with the 10 years experience I now have.

I switched jobs recently and used it to my advantage. Negotiated a salary 20% over my peers and 4 weeks holiday off the bat. Most guys in the trades though don't know their worth and feel they need to bow down and take whatever employers are willing to give them. Not realizing that these employers NEED their skill set to keep their businesses going.

For everyone complaining about millennials, it's not that we are a lazy bunch, it's that we're not driven by the same things the baby boomer shop owners are used to. We value experiences and would sooner take an extra weeks paid leave then a raise of equal value. We want a job that has a clear path to progressing and learning, we can smell bullshit from a mile away if you make promises of progression but don't show it to us.

Take for example I am working with a new apprentice, if I make him do menial tasks all day, taking out garbage and cleaning the shop, without letting him even get a little knowledge on car, you can bet he's gone. If I take say an hour a day to teach him and show him something new, he will work his a$$ of doing the menial shit because he can see there will be progression with me. Old school shop owners see this as time wasting and want to make sure that "when you're on the clock, you're working for me."

If there's any listeners of the MFCEO project, he is a huge advocate for hiring millenials and hits the nail on the head with how to get the best work out of them.

 

[Tommo]

I'm also afraid that we are raising a generation of "entitled" kids who have been convinced they should walk right into an $80K+/yr job without learning the ropes and paying their dues...when I started at $3/hr I was happy to have a SHOT and knew right from the start that this was just the beginning. Each year I worked my way up, when I hit the top, I moved to another company until I realized I needed to be running my own gig -- but that took 20 freakin years...and all the jobs prior taught me valuable lessons about business, customers, marketing, etc...

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

It's always been like this. My Fathers generation thought the same about me, a fifties child. Give the Millenials a bit of leeway, we mostly see wankers due to the media pushing this division. That's the agenda.

 

[Ninjakid]

I don't know why everyone wants their kids to become cubicle jockeys.

Last year I talked to a guy who was like my age, and he told me about how he has an office job now and entering the "adult world."

I could literally see the life leaving his eyes as he told me about it.

 

[Andy Black]

There's a couple of tradesmen upstairs insulating a room as I write this. We had this conversation yesterday. I said there'll be a shortage of tradesmen in a few years. They said there is already.

My stepson is in his 4th year of a business management degree. He *hates* it. He just wants to get out there, graft, and make some coin. He had a couple of summer jobs a few years ago: one working with my wife in an accounts payable office, one working for his dad in a large warehouse. I'm delighted he's learned early on that he has no interest to work in an office.

I don't know why everyone wants their kids to become cubicle jockeys.

If any of my sons wanted to become tradesmen instead of going to college then I'd be all for it.

Tradesmen end up working for themselves pretty soon. Their goals aren't a corner office with nice chair, climbing the career ladder in someone else's company. "Ooo, he could work for Google or Facebook. They're in Dublin." Err, no. Feck that.

I like having trademen as clients. I have an affinity for the craftsman who lives by his ability to make sales, deliver, and generate good word-of-mouth.

We've a lot to learn from tradesmen, and bugger all to learn from the typical MBA grad.


(EDIT: It's not going to be a recession for the blue collar workers.)

 

[Merging Left]

Going to college has two conflicting promises. People outside of the college/university system, like your parents, tell you to go to college so that you can secure a high-paying, stable career. Once you get there, however, you're encouraged by those within the system, like your professors, to pursue knowledge for knowledge's sake, and that learning for the sake of learning is some noble endeavor. This isn't universally true. My accounting professors understood exactly why we were in that specific program - stable, high-paying jobs.

Blue collar work isn't sexy. It's associated with manual labor, back pain by the time you're 40, and coming home sweaty and dirty every day. Office work, on the other hand, is thought of as clean, organized, and stable (in reality it's dreadfully monotonous, and you'll still get back pain at 40).

Blue collar work is hard. It's physically demanding, and you need to evolve into a legitimate business if you want to find true financial success. If you're a grunt, would you rather make $15-20/hr as a mechanic, or $15-20/hr as a bookkeeper? Different strokes for different folks.

There are countless useless, unmarketable degrees being pushed by universities. I think that the vast majority of the people who obtain some of those degrees have no business being in college. I have a friend who got a degree in communications simply because it was the easiest major for him to graduate with. What the hell? Now he works in sales and is doing well for himself, but he set himself back $50k and 4 years getting the degree.

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

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.

 

[collin_e]

Darn, you mean you can't hire someone with a Gender Studies degree?

Exactly my point. I don’t understand why people go to college for this. Techs are starting at $20 an hour

 

[scott wisniewsk]

Ya Think. All high schools and parents have stressed go to college , its the only way to get a good job. This has been going on for years and the effects have showed up big time. This last recession cleared out alot of the building trades .Alot of companies as begging for help , sign on bonus , free training etc. Not everyone goes to the office to work . You can start in the trades at a good pay and have no school debt to repay .

 

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[jpanarra]

I don't buy that it's purely people refusing to go to trade school. At the moment we have the lowest levels of employment we've had in many decades in a variety of cities, including some of the most important ones in the world. Every company is finding is hard to hire, it's just that white collar companies don't tend to put "for hire" signs outside, they hire online and through networking.

Talk to a recruiter, they'll tell you how many vacancies there are right now in every market with very few people looking for any type of work. This links to @MJ DeMarco 's thread about an impending market correction. There is incredibly low unemployment right now and that tends to create many of the market conditions that we see currently, which generate bubbles in real estate etc.

I think you'll be surprised, STEM is heavily saturated and their expectations doesn't lineup with what the application is asking for.

There even was a time where I had to teach to get a paystub because there wasn't any openings available

Now, I'm a chemist with 8 years experience, I've been also trying to break the 50k/year 'median' income ever since I've graduated. I got my MBA in April of 2017 to try and get a higher spot such as a lab manager.

I've learned to keep in touch with recruiters, cold email companies' decision makers to personally introduce myself and such. I've been applying internally and externally for over a year on at least a weekly basis to try and advance my career.

Still no luck, I've had conversations with the recruiters, companies in my field right now have a lot of leverage due to the status of the economy are willing to wait for someone overqualified to apply, such as a PhD or someone with 30 years experience for the salary I'm looking for.

Thankfully I found the FLM and the FLF because I don't see a career advancement in my near future. So I need to create other streams of income to grow and improve my fiscal status.

 

[Legend]

I think a lot of you are forgetting the view from the slow lane.

I am a millennial (34 yo) and a professed slowlaner. I come from a blue collar family so I've never looked down on any profession. I went to college for engineering - I wanted to work with my hands, specifically robotics. I searched and searched for a white collar job when I graduated and I only got one response. I became a drafter, and now I am in sales. Still sitting behind a desk. I make 60k a year salary so I have flexibility with my hours, live in one of the cheapest cities in the US, 401K match, 3 weeks vacation, every weekend off, and of course holidays. I understand this is all slowlaner talk, but this is what a slowlaner lives for.

But what you're trying to sell me is physically hard work, for 20k less, fewer days off, and probably no insurance or retirement plan? I've never looked at an auto tech job post so I don't know the benefits, but if I was offered $40 to dig a 6ft deep hole or $60 to draw a 6ft deep hole - I know which one I would've taken.

 

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[collin_e]

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..

 

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[masterneme]

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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[Jeff Noel]

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.

 

[Solais]

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.

 

[Solais]

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!)

 

[Andy Black]

Find the right person, pay them a nice rate and train them to do more.

 

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