re: America needs carpenters and plumbers. Gen Z doesn't seem interested

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People seem to have this impression that making 80-100k as a tradesman is normal or easily achievable. It’s not. For every six figure tradesman there’s probably 20 making half that.

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First off, 20/1 is a huge exaggeration. Every crew of 8-10 guys has a young kid with decent sense making $80K. Second, the majority of the workers not doing well or doing the shite jobs in the trade industries were either too lazy/dumb to make it out of the 9th grade or they are Hispanic fresh in the country and dont speak English. You take a kid that did well enough in high school to qualify for college, and he has the ability to work smarter than 90% of those guys. All he lacks is the work ethic. If he can endure the bullshite of any new job, he is easily making $30 an hour ($80K at 50 hrs a week) before the college kid has his first loan payment due. The bar is that low.

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the master electrician will have to leave their company to someone..

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I know an independent electrician in his 60s who does work on irrigation pivots and wells. Makes over 400k a year

You can make real money these days by mastering a skilled trade because you can charge what you want. I know an independent farm mechanic who can fix heavy machinery that charges 120/hr

Because it’s work

Where do you learn that stuff? Trade schools are just as expensive, if not more, than a university

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You can make a lot of money in the trades. I wish now I would have done it. I dunno if I would want to do industrial/commercial construction, but being a residential carpenter would have been cool. Get outside, work with your hands, not sitting behind a desk. And once you get experience, you can work for yourself.

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Is this a thread where everyone props up the top 5% of tradesmen as an example of why it makes no sense to go to college?

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let me tell you something in case you are unaware. On the industrial and commercial side there is a critical lack of skilled tradesmen. Critical. So critical that specialty contractors are going out of business for lack of staff.

you don’t have to be top 5%. You don’t have to be top 50%. What you do have to be is committed and available. That’s it.

I’m a commercial GC and we do well. If I knew then what I know now I would have been a plumber, electrician or HVAC tech. The entrepreneurial opportunity there is off the charts right now and has been for some time

I was introduced to a small civil contractor some months ago. I was wary but we went with a few small projects to see how it went. The dude blew me away just by being reliable, flexible and a good problem solver. I have him bowed up with work right now.

you don’t have to turn a wrench you’re whole life. If you can perform and you can sell you can get rich and retire young

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Any 401k? health insurance? dental? PTO?

Didn't think so.

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We are talking about a kid who is 21 years old working in lieu of college. You know what else he wont have after doing that four years? ~$80-$120K of loan debt from his undergrad degree. I get it, its not for everyone. But there a lot more kids in a 4 year degree program that would be better off in a trade than vice versa. And that split will only widen if things continue as is.

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~$80-$120K of loan debt from his undergrad degree.

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crazy hyperbole. the average student loan debt is less than half of 80k.

eta: you know how easy it is for a louisiana kid to go to school in state, graduate with very little to no debt, and make a salary at the top end of what a 23 year old blue collar worker makes? it's not hard