re: Meta can’t hire fiber technicians fast enough, so now they’re training them for free

My son is just started a similar program. For East Tn, the pay and benefits are very competitive.

27 younger generation downvotes so far.

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Curious as to what the process is for getting hired on and where these data centers are located.

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I suspect the thousands of openings on sites like indeed etc are fishing expeditions and only a handful of applicants will ever get an interview and the other million or so will never get notification that their resume was received. If one's resume is looked at and the applicant gets an interview chances are good there is a data center near you....and it is working 24 hours a day 7 days a week and you will be expected to work the majority of those hours. There is a pile of money to be made but you better be ready to work more OT than there are hours in a week. I know a BUNCH of folks working on them and its a pretty shitty gig for all of them.

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The younger generation doesn’t believe in or desire to ‘work their way up’ and have a 30 year career.

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A thirty year career in a trade means starting at age 37. Very few people are in a financial position to start an entry level career at 37, especially in an industry where the average age is around 40 if you do not include the 1% in management. There is a valid reason young folks do not go into and stick with trade jobs....because the ones who do start realize its a great job but it isn't a career and unless they are dumber than a stump they will realize everyone but one of the people they work with is under 40 and the one who is over is the boss and they have 100 co-workers and one boss....the math don't add up.

Lets say a young person starts right out of high school at the age of 18. I did. If that person is lucky, does not get hurt, does not pile up the wear and tear on their body and manages to work for decent employers who do not treat them like shite most trade jobs are going to hand them a 60 year old body by the age of 40. So they are 22 years, 27 years away from retirement and competing for the same jobs with 30 year olds who still have a viable body, are probably in a position to work for less, and often competing against even younger people without a family who can certainly work for less. The math don't math for the vast majority of people.

I started the IBEW apprenticeship program the August after I graduated from high school in May. They took 60 of us in my class. Out of right at 17,000 applicants. By the end of the first year there were about 50 left. When we turned out 4 years later there were 30. That was in 1987....39 years ago next month. Out of that class of 60 2 are still working in the trade and about 20 are disabled and eking out a living on SS and a small pension and whatever they managed to save for retirement. One has a very successful business in the trade that his grandfather started in the 1920s. That leaves about 7 of us who have found another way to earn a living. That class was pretty typical of similar classes......it is a young person's game and opportunities to advance to a position where physical limitations are not an issue are scarce relative to the number of people who start and even relative to the number of people who manage to survive into their mid 40s. I have been around career tradesmen my entire life and work with them every day and I know for a certainty that the reason its a hard sale is because there ain't no future in it beyond the age of 40 or so for most human beings. The math just don't math.

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My uncle, vietnam vet and now retired, did some of the original fiber work with Bell South in the 1980s. This isn't new technology.

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Fiber isn't new, terminating has very much evolved. I had fiber technicians working for me as late as 2006 that I was billing $175 an hour for....and terminating had come a LONG way by that time from when I became an ATT certified Fiber Optic Technician in 1990. When I started a basic set of tools to terminate ATT fiber cost just under $5k. By 2006 that cost, for a service truck, was around $1k. I suspect it is about that today...because of inflation, not because the process hasn't changed. Its drastically different.

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you understand 99% of people can not go into management at all right? that is not how it works, cant have every employee who has been there 5 years moving through like you did or nobody would be left to actually install roofs

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There are about 3.5 million high school seniors in the US every year. About 60% start college leaving about 1.5 million. if you reduced the number of college students by half that'd leave about 3 million possible tradesmen. There are about 34 million trades people in the US and 1 million openings. If 25% of the current 1.5 million kids not going to college from high school went into a trade for 3 years there would be ZERO trade openings in 3 years. Probably 6-10 if you account for deaths and retirement etc. Lets say it takes 20. Those kids would have 29 years left to work before retirement with zero openings and around 500,000 or so possible new hires EVERY MAY. The math just don't math.

It is an easy thing to find what the prevailing wage for ALL trades is in a given area. It ain't nearly what one would think. For example in New York City the prevailing wage for an electrician is $51.50 plus another 30% or so for benefits...so around $70 an hour all in. That is $140K a year in NYC where the cost of living is about 135% of the rest of the nation....so about $104K nationwide....for a trade that, to earn that salary, requires 5 years of training, classroom and OJT, and, and this is the point, where the average age is 43 years old. That means that half of the electricians in the US today have another 24 years to work before reaching full retirement age and will do so competing against half of those working today under the age of 43 in a job that is moderately physical in nature. The math simply don't math.

When you consider the number of people who start a trade and work in a trade and become a manager in that trade the numbers are abysmal. Its worse for those who open their own business. The math don't math. It happens. Folks win the lottery. No one ought to count on either happening.

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There are about 3.5 million high school seniors in the US every year. About 60% start college leaving about 1.5 million. if you reduced the number of college students by half that'd leave about 3 million possible tradesmen. There are about 34 million trades people in the US and 1 million openings. If 25% of the current 1.5 million kids not going to college from high school went into a trade for 3 years there would be ZERO trade openings in 3 years. Probably 6-10 if you account for deaths and retirement etc. Lets say it takes 20. Those kids would have 29 years left to work before retirement with zero openings and around 500,000 or so possible new hires EVERY MAY. The math just don't math.

It is an easy thing to find what the prevailing wage for ALL trades is in a given area. It ain't nearly what one would think. For example in New York City the prevailing wage for an electrician is $51.50 plus another 30% or so for benefits...so around $70 an hour all in. That is $140K a year in NYC where the cost of living is about 135% of the rest of the nation....so about $104K nationwide....for a trade that, to earn that salary, requires 5 years of training, classroom and OJT, and, and this is the point, where the average age is 43 years old. That means that half of the electricians in the US today have another 24 years to work before reaching full retirement age and will do so competing against half of those working today under the age of 43 in a job that is moderately physical in nature. The math simply don't math.

When you consider the number of people who start a trade and work in a trade and become a manager in that trade the numbers are abysmal. Its worse for those who open their own business. The math don't math. It happens. Folks win the lottery. No one ought to count on either happening.

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its not possible for any of this to be true

the OT told me every electrician they know owns a business with multiple boats and big trucks in the driveway of their 5k SF mansion. Are you accusing the OT of being ignorant? not possible man



but for real so many here are just ignorant AF and have never worked in the trades at all, ever, not 1 day. But they sit in the AC all day thinking how awesome they are while posting on here telling half truths.

according to the OT every welder makes 150k a year(they leave out the part about only being home 2 days a month on their fatigue day), every electrician owns a business making a million a year and every plumber owns 3 yachts.

but they will then shite on plant operators

make it make sense

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It beats all I ever slept with...and if I am being honest the ones who claim to be in their 60s and still crawling through attics and installing AC units and making $150k a year are some lying sons of bitches. They ain't doing so because they are on the internet in the middle of the day during the middle of the week when HVAC techs are in an attic sweating their asses off and dreaming of finding another way to earn a living.

The trades are a VIABLE option. I have been around them every minute of my 60 years. Almost every man I know is a tradesman of some sort. It is ENTIRELY possible to make your nut in a trade. It is damned hard to do but many people do it. Recruiting for the trades by simply lying is a horrendous way to treat someone. I have recruited for my trade since I was 25 years old...35 years and counting. I can say without reserve I never sugar coated it. I told young people what MY experience has been, not the experience of a key board warrior board with their cushy 9-5 gig in an office with a flushing toilet 100 feet away and a heater and an air conditioner on at all times depending on the weather. I started out as a tradesman....I found a way to be that keyboard warrior because I knew what was coming beyond the age of 40 by having witnessed it multiple times first hand....most of the people touting the trades has NO idea.

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100%

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Isn't it $100,000 for H1B of this type for roofers?

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No your tax dollars pay for foreigners to come here


here's your fell for it again award for believing trump

For 4 weeks worth of training, that doesnt seem bad.
To be honest.