For every 5 tradesperson retiring there are 2 replacing them.
How long do you want to wait for your toilet to get fixed?
How will the US reindustrialize without skilled workers?
US high schools stopped trades education in the 1960’s. NAFTA and succeeding off shoring of jobs to China decimated factory workers.
Perhaps this is a national security issue?
Could skilled labor end up receiving 6 figure renumeration?
In many areas, tradespeople are already making well over six figures base, with ample opportunities to work as much overtime as they’d like. I constantly hear crazy stories from electricians earning $200,000+. The data center buildout is creating tremendous opportunities for anyone wanting to learn a trade.
I’ve noticed that almost every time someone shows up for plumbing, furnace, etc. there are two guys – the second is learning the trade.
DB2
Folks better begin following the DIY process, learn how to do it yourself, or deal with the wait time… I did everything myself for the majority of my time, unless I was off, on the road, remodeling every room, adding a workshop to store all those now dusty tools.. Then there came a time when it was better to just write the heck, over the years, a list of local, reliable services, contractors was built up, shared as needed with friends, family… At least we settled in, could afford doing it… Now, a tad creaky, staying off ladders, giving them to those in need… Here on TMF, the Building/Maintaing a Home board was a helpful site, quieted a lot since the recent shuffle.. Holmes has been a great resource, the world needs many more of him and his family…
That day is now, especially for trades in demand at data centers. Electricians and HVAC.
Anecdotal evidence, but one of my friends son’s grossed 173000 last year as a lineman.
Quite a few tradespeople in the suburbs of Chicago are grossing over 100k.
I have a friend who owns a Heating and Cooling company. He employs 9 or 10 people. He told me several years ago that he pays his techs a lot more than what his son earns who had a master’s degree in education.
So eventually trade persons will be receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Good for them.
Might this be a bottleneck in the reindustrialization of the nation?
Ditto. Most of the time I strike up a conversation and usually ask would they hire more if there was more and universally they say. yes.
Engineering Retirement Wave: Baby Boomer retirements are accelerating, with data showing that for every three senior engineers retiring, only one or two new graduates enter the field. This will be a major problem for US to reindustrialize without skilled engineers.
Engineering shortage is a global problem. The United States and European countries face engineering labor shortages. The US engineering graduate pipeline is sustained in significant part by foreign-born students.
China, India and Russia produce more engineers than US. That gap matters beyond geopolitics. It means the global supply of engineering talent is concentrated in regions where many Western companies can’t easily hire due to IP concerns, export controls, and security clearance requirements.
We’ve discussed the effects of over-production of elites. Given that Russia has a population of only 140 million, what are all those engineering grads going to do (other than fly drones in The Ukraine)?
DB2
The US needs these engineers. How many do you think will emigrate for better pay?
I honestly don’t believe we have that problem here, though many in the USA want to say that. As noted, we are not graduating enough engineers here. This war we seem to have on education, on learning things, no being smart, needs to stop.
I noticed this when I worked at Oracle 12 years back - all the new hires, all the young employees, were not “from here”. I see the same thing at my current employer, where Indians and Asians massively out-number “natives”.
When I was at Oracle I asked an alum of mine (we did not overlap during our studies though) why this was? He was an ex-CEO of a top technology company so he should know. He told me “American parents still see doctor and lawyer as successful careers for their children, and engineer as geeky”.
Depends on how you define elite. True, we probably don’t produce enough engineers but we are producing plenty of college graduates with degrees that only qualify them to ask “do you want fries with that”.
I only ask this out of curiosity because I genuinely don’t know. What percentage of engineering tasks can be relegated to A.I. with an engineer supervising?
Jk
To top it off, men are leaving the job market in record numbers: Men are losing ground in the labor market. Here's why
In this thread it was about engineers in Russia. As for here in the US, we could use more engineers.
On the other hand, how many of the 30-35K history graduates each year are going to work in the field (not to mention the 180-200K in the social sciences or the 10K in gender or ethnic studies)?
DB2
Engineers are not elites!
The US engineering graduate pipeline is sustained in significant part by foreign-born students. Russia will not depend on foreign engineering graduate pipeline.
If you think Russia only needs engineers for drones, then you do not understand Russia and what engineers do in every modrn society.
Ford CEO Jim Farley says the company has about 5,000 open mechanic jobs, paying $120,000 per year, but still struggles to find enough qualified people to fill them.
Well he could offer $200,000. Mechanics would leave present jobs for Ford.
In his view, the core problems are a weak training pipeline and underinvestment in trade education.
Duh we ended education for trades in high school in the 1960’s And NAFTA & off-shorng of manufacturing killed more demand for skilled labor. CEOs benefited from increased profits and profit sharing.
So who pays for the education of skilled labor?
Mike Rowe is doing his part.
He also tells numerous stories of skilled trade students going to school, then apprenticeships, and by the time they are finished, they are debt free. And they almost always have a job lined up at the end.
