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In Germany, all Craftsmen are just laughing. Tiler, Carpenter, electrician, etc.. all of them have enough to do, can choose their clients and their wages. I und

In Germany, all Craftsmen are just laughing. Tiler, Carpenter, electrician, etc.. all of them have enough to do, can choose their clients and their wages. I understand that HN always will tend to talk about CS, but Craftsmen are doing their 40k/year, easily. The Salary potential is just increasing.

lugged 5y ago
You know Devs can relatively easily get around 250k in NY / SF right? Trades are solid career choices but it's hard work and you expire at about the same rate as a software dev.
- laputan_machine 5y ago
  So sick of seeing these wildly inflated numbers, they increase after every post I'm sure. Most of us here who are software devs are not earning close to 150k, stop using a few SF salaries as the baseline for the rest of us. It is really annoying.
  - Ancapistani 5y ago
    I don’t know the breakdown, but I’m a (remote) dev in Arkansas making right at $150k with ~10 years experience. The numbers aren’t inflated, they’re just not equally distributed.
  - raztogt21 5y ago
    Is easily doable have 2 100k jobs without burnout. Do you really spend 8 hours coding each day?
  - dlp211 5y ago
    Ok, so let's not use inflated Numbers for the trades either. According to the BLS, the median Software Developer makes $110k. The median carpenter makes $34k. There are also nearly 5x the number of Developer jobs then carpenters. It's a similar story for other trades, machinist is $47k, welder is $44k, plumber is $56k, HVAC is $50k. Then when we look at other technology jobs, PM, IT, etc, the story is similar to developers, high median salary with a multiple of jobs available over the trades.
    - mrweasel 5y ago
      I know that your talking about the US, but I assure you no Danish carpenters work for $34K, unless they are still in training. You can easily triple that $34K which places you nicely in the same area as a developer with 10 to 15 years of experience. The SF saleries are inflated BS because they are insanely high even compared to one of the most expensive countries in the world.
      - dlp211 5y ago
        Sorry, but without some sort of source, I am skeptical, but also acknowledge that different markets and economies will reward labor in different ways. So when it comes to the US this is a common talking point on the English speaking internet, "the trades pay well", "my buddy makes $150k a year as a carpenter, so you should think about becoming a carpenter too", etc. The fundamental problem is that while yes, there are people who make good money in the trades, on average, it simply isn't true, as opposed to being a software engineer, where the average employee is compensated quite well.
        hluska 5y ago
        My sister has a trade and has talked about the salary distribution enough that I think it’s going to be very hard for anyone to ever agree on numbers. She describes it as a bimodal distribution. One (smaller) group of people with trades are willing to work anywhere whenever. They work in fly-in camps with limited work seasons and practically unlimited overtime. Since there’s nothing else to do, they log enough hours to get into double and triple time. The other (larger) group goes home after work and their overtime is limited to nonexistent. The pay is so different between the two groups that if they’re analyzed together, the statistically typical tradesperson looks nothing like the typical tradesperson.
        dlp211 5y ago
        I actually wouldn't be surprised to find that most labor markets are bi-modal (but certainly not all). Which is why I used median wage and not average wage, because the median is very likely to grab the common tradespersons compensation experience whereas the average is likely to be skewed high by the upper distribution group.
  - Game_Ender 5y ago
    They are not inflated numbers they are what you can get working for a set of top companies with deep pockets competing over the same talent. It varies but 150k is entry level comp pretty much anywhere they hire in the United States [0]. It’s not “fair” but it’s worth your time to look into getting into the US tech sector. Your skills have the most market value their. 0 - http://levels.fyi http://levels.fyi
    - jshen 5y ago
      Not sure why you’re getting downvoted because this is accurate. If you are a low level dev at a big company in a major city you will get a salary of at least $100k, a bonus, and stock options. They easily combine to get you to $150k, and I’m talking entry level roles, it goes up considerably from there.
      - jdsfighter 5y ago
        Well I'm obviously in the wrong market then! Down here in Oklahoma, I'm a Senior Software Engineer, and I'm only at $110k, plus around $10k in bonuses a year. There's very few opportunities for salary increases unless I start looking for remote work outside of the state or I opt to move into a management role. Most senior salaries around here seem to be in the $95-120k range, so when I see similar numbers for "entry level" roles, it always perks me up a bit.
        jshen 5y ago
        People make more in big cities, it’s actually been studied across the globe and the data is rather compelling.
        cstejerean 5y ago
        Seriously consider remote then. You could easily pull in double that working remotely for a west coast tech company.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
    If you're in the US, don't be annoyed with these numbers; learn from them. If you get on LinkedIn and expect > $200k, you may be surprised by what you can achieve. You should line up several interviews all in the same week and play the offers against one another. At least one should be over $150k, and possibly over $200k. That highest number then sets a floor that everyone else will need to rise to as you negotiate. Politely ignore claims that offers will explode; they won't. Add options/RSUs, and you may be shocked at the amount of compensation you can get. You can actually do it.
    - nostrebored 5y ago
      Yeah, honestly if you're in SFBA/Seattle/NYC, this is not an unreasonable salary expectation for someone with a decade of experience. Especially if you're carefully selecting job opportunities that line up well with skill growth.
  - rejectedandsad 5y ago
    I make $200k as a mid-level and that’s considered low. I’m not in NYC. Side note - fan of your username.
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      What languages do you use?
  - yolovoe 5y ago
    I only have 1 YOE and I'll say the numbers sound right. A friend with 2 YOE got 2 290K offers. Another friend/former co-worker with 8 YOE got a 400K+ offer. These numbers are all for remote roles for SV-based companies. You can also check salary on levels.fyi. You won't believe it, but 300K+ for new grads (undergrads) isn't even unheard of if you look at places like Citadel & Jane Street, tho of course the hiring bar is very high at these places.
  - AngryData 5y ago
    People do that with every job it seems. Always somebody talking about random tradesmen making $100k+ but in the vast majority of cases they make nowhere near that.
  - filoleg 5y ago
    Please stop implying that $150k+ salaries are reserved for FAANG tier companies and SF only. It might have been true 5-10 years ago (and even then, i am a bit skeptical of that lower boundary of 5 years), but it is far from the truth in 2021. Literally interviewed with a small startup (around 20 people total headcount) less than a week ago. The offer was for a base salary of $180k+grand promises of equity given out that should grow 15x and make one rich, but whatever, because equity at this point is just imaginary monopoly money worth pretty much nothing right now, so lets omit that part completely. But even with that in mind, $180k of pure cash just from base salary is more than doable. And I am not even a senior level or anything like that. Technically the company is in NYC, but the position is fully remote, which makes it even more lucrative for people who want to live in cheap COL states (no salary adjustment, which works out great for this scenario).
  - bodge5000 5y ago
    This is very true, but you hear the same thing from craftsmen. Another commenter further up said that a HVAC repairmen told him that making $200k/year in that job was pretty average, and a reply to that pointed out the median was $50k/year. Not saying I disagree, but yeh, its not unique to software dev it seems
- pelasaco 5y ago
  Ok, but I'm not from NY/SF but I'm assuming based on the small amount of time that I spent there, that every thing is more expensive there, including housing and medical care... In Germany (Europe?) I would say that a Software Developer salary floats between 30k/y - 100k/y.
  - jshen 5y ago
    Yeah, it’s more expensive in the big cities, but if you by a house you tend to profit from that increase. It’s hard to see that when in the early stages of your career, but I’m glad I stuck it out and didn’t move to a low cost area. Im in the late stages of my career and after owning my home for 15 years my mortgage is far less than rents in my area, my salary has gone up a ton over the years, and my house has appreciated a ton. If you are a dev early in your career and in a big city, stick it out. Get into a big company that gives you stock options that are worth something, but a house when you can, and start working to max out your 401k. In all likelihood it will pay off in the long run. My old boss called it the “get rich slowly plan”. As a person that grew up really poor and has been in tech over 20 years, I can assure you it pays off.
    - bradlys 5y ago
      I don’t know if the price increases will keep happening at the same historical rates. Although it isn’t out of the realm of possibility, I have a hard time believing that the houses in my neighborhood in 5-10 years will go from $2-3m to $4-6m. Real estate is a tricky thing. I wouldn’t buy it for the sake of expecting it to go up in value. I’d buy it because you need housing.
      - forty 5y ago
        Yes buy a house. If it goes up you are (potentially) rich, if it goes down, you have a house :)
      - jshen 5y ago
        It's not hard to believe. First, the big caveat, what I'm about to say ignores the possibility of huge catastrophe (environmental collapse, world war, meteor hits the earth) because if such a catastrophe happens, most of this won't matter a whole lot. Barring catastrophe, it will almost certainly go up if your time horizon is longer than 10 years. If you are in a big city, the populations are growing faster than new housing is being built. On top of that, there is no space to build many new single family homes so those will go up even more if you own one instead of a condo or townhouse. I bought my first house at the peak of the last bubble. Ten years later I sold it for more than I paid for it, and those last few years my mortgage was a fair bit lower than rents for a comparable place. Most people simply haven't wrapped their head around exponential growth. Our economy grows exponentially, and our population has historically (there are signs this might be changing). Unfortunately, I think our environment can't sustain that, but as long as it does, things will go up if your time horizon is long enough. Edit: also, I’m not suggesting that your home value will double in 10 years. Not sure where you got that idea. My point does not assume or require doubling in 10 years.
- benhurmarcel 5y ago
  And in Germany senior devs make 50-100k€. You can’t compare salaries without taking location into account.
crescentfresh 5y ago
Craftsmen who are willing to do a small job for me are so hard to find right now, they're busy enough NONE of them in my area need the business. Every quote I get is either overblown "to make it worth my time", or I simply get declined. Ontario, Canada.
- hluska 5y ago
  That’s interesting- this is the third time I’ve heard this about Ontario in less than a week. Do you have any idea what’s driving this? Another person in the same boat believes that a lot of people are fixing up homes to sell while the market is hot. Another person believes that it’s a supply problem - trades people left Ontario for Alberta, lost their jobs there and can’t afford to move back.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Ontario and BC have extremely hot housing markets and the demand is off the charts - a lot of tilers and plumbers in BC get sucked into reno contracting companies and simply have enough work to keep them busy for years. I don't think there was an exodus to Alberta - tradesfolk bring in serious cash in Canada so they can definitely afford to live in hot areas... I'd be more curious if it was actually early retirement that was driving things with tradesfolk building up enough of a nest egg that they can afford to retire early.
  - jjkaczor 5y ago
    In my experience, having been a homeowner in Alberta first, then Ontario second - it's similar to software development... Most tradespeople prefer to work on new builds, large amounts of stable work, without the hastle of renovating existing structures and all of the hidden issues that are quickly exposed once the surface has been taken away. (So... technical debt...) As a contract IT consultant - sure, sometimes I take small "side-hustle" contracts if I am not swamped by my primary gig - but, I couldn't pay all mortgage if I was reliant on just taking small/odd jobs. Same goes for tradespeople.
  - kortilla 5y ago
    > lost their jobs there and can’t afford to move back. This isn’t 1800. Moving back for a job is trivial when the alternative is being unemployed.
yvdriess 5y ago
Not Germany, but similar situation in Belgium: Skilled crafts here can generate a more money in the first 10-20 years of a career than what you make with a university degree desk job. One factor is that you can get into the labor force much earlier, don't neglect that 3-5 years head start when saving for your first house loan. After that, it depends if you're doing the extra hours, weekend and night shifts. After that the masters degree jobs get the advantage. The craftsmen either they worked their way into a more supervising role or are not able or willing to do the lucrative labor hours. The decline in crafts like baker or butcher is attributed to the long and weird hours, more than the pay. There are simply not enough to replace the
- lostandbored 5y ago
  Your comment was cut off at the end, mate.
  - yvdriess 5y ago
    Right you are! + the aging work force.
yitchelle 5y ago
Comparing jobs solely based on income is a nonsense comparison. The two class of jobs are so different. Scalability, physicality, career path, longevity etc all comes into picture. The discussion has been going around in cycles for many years.
- pelasaco 5y ago
  What I wanted to point was that talking about "employability", people don't have to go to a university to get a degree and then try to find a job. There are other great ways to make enough money to don't have to end on OnlyFans.
  - rainonmoon 5y ago
    A lot of places around the world have been in lockdowns that have made manual labour difficult, while doing sex work from home has been made much easier.
scns 5y ago
Well, some of those destroy your body in 25 years (Roofer/back, Tiler/knees), as a Carpenter you have to work with toxic laquer without getting compensated for it like Painters do. If you don't have your own shop at 40 you are pretty much screwed.
asdff 5y ago
In Germany there must be an undersupply of these laborers. Come to California and you will find electricians with years of experience, all sorts of craftsman, woodworkers, tilers, roofers, hvac specialists, approaching you with your three cans of paint and asking you for work in the home depot parking lot. Maybe that's just what happens though when you get your working experience in another country like Mexico or El Salvador and these trades in the U.S. are protected by a licensing process that doesn't care about relevant unlicensed experience.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  > approaching you with your three cans of paint and asking you for work in the home depot parking lot. Maybe that's just what happens though Where in live in the US, the housing market is exploding. It is impossible to find these workers, licensed or not.
  - asdff 5y ago
    I live where the median home is 900k and there is still no shortage of handymen and general contractor labor here if you are willing to pay for work under the table. It's an interesting dynamic.
    - dcolkitt 5y ago
      It’s not an issue of how expensive houses is, it’s an issue of how many houses are being built. California has the slowest housing starts of any major state in the country. That same carpenter would have his pick of job sites in Florida.
- Johnny555 5y ago
  The licensing process helps make sure that the electrician that has 10 years of experience in El Salvador understands American wiring codes and practices before he does something that'll burn your house down. For sure there are common skills that all electricians share regardless of country, but there are still significant differences between countries, like in the UK ring circuits are common, but are against code in the USA. licensing process that doesn't care about relevant unlicensed experience The problem with unlicensed experience is that it provides no assurance of knowledge of code or safe wiring practice. Like when I found that my house had several MWBC's, but on one of them, the previous owner (or someone he hired) had replaced the tied-handle breakers with untied breakers, which leads to a very unsafe situation (another common mistake with MWBC's is moving breakers around and putting the hots on the same hot leg, which can lead to an overloaded neutral). Or worse, when I mapped out my outlets and found that the owner had put a 30A breaker on the 12 gauge wire leading to the garage outlets, presumably he was tripping the code compliant 20A breaker and "solved" that with a bigger breaker.
scrps 5y ago
I had to have my HVAC system repaired and I got to talking to the guy who was working on it and during the course of our conversation we started talking about pay... 100k-200k USD/yr he said wasn't unusual once you were done with school and got a little experience. I was floored, I called a family friend who does HVAC and he said that was about right. If I didn't love CS I'd be working in HVAC right now.
- dcolkitt 5y ago
  Median HVAC tech salary is $50k. Is it possible to make $200k or higher? Sure. But the HVAC people pulling down that comp are generally at that level primarily because of their business skills not their HVAC skills. It’d be like saying you can make a million as a waiter or cook, because of a small business owner who opened a restaurant. https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-HVAC-Technician-Salary-by-State https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-HV...
grecy 5y ago
In Australia craftsmen (called "tradies") are booking 18 months out, will only work on the things they want to (i.e. new builds, because they're easy/clean), and are easily making $100k - $150k a year. Most of them still prefer to surf than work !
- SilverRed 5y ago
  You have to wonder though, is this because of a genuine gap in the market where people are yet to realize there is money to be made, or is there something else that these stories are leaving out. Is everyone in the industry making this much money? If you joined the industry today, how long would it take to start making good money?
  - grecy 5y ago
    You have to do a 4 year apprenticeship, during which time you won't make great money. Then you work for someone else and probably make $80k or $90k, then you start your own business. In terms of supply/demand Australians are extremely house proud and spend an insane amount of money on renovations, upgrades, etc, so all the trades are always slammed. Have been for 20 years.
    - SilverRed 5y ago
      Right so it seems somewhat similar to the profits you can make programming. Doesn't seem like a crazy get rich quick scheme, just years of hard work paying off.
      - BigJono 5y ago
        Pretty much. There's probably also an "in crowd" aspect to it as well. Everyone I know makes $100k+ as a dev here at least after a few years, but I've had Uber rides with older Indian dev drivers complaining that they can't find a job. I imagine anyone lumped into the whole "dodgy lebo/bogan/asian tradies" stereotype might struggle in a similar way.
- 5y ago
DrJaws 5y ago
40k in germany is not a good salary
- pelasaco 5y ago
  Depends where you live, depends on your life style. It is however the average salary in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_... https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/164047/umfrage/jahresarbeitslohn-in-deutschland-seit-1960/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/164047/umfrag... https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/gehaelter-so-hoch-ist-das-durchschnittseinkommen-in-deutschland/26628226.html https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/gehaelter-so-hoch-i...

lugged 5y ago

You know Devs can relatively easily get around 250k in NY / SF right? Trades are solid career choices but it's hard work and you expire at about the same rate as a software dev.

laputan_machine 5y ago
So sick of seeing these wildly inflated numbers, they increase after every post I'm sure. Most of us here who are software devs are not earning close to 150k, stop using a few SF salaries as the baseline for the rest of us. It is really annoying.
- Ancapistani 5y ago
  I don’t know the breakdown, but I’m a (remote) dev in Arkansas making right at $150k with ~10 years experience. The numbers aren’t inflated, they’re just not equally distributed.
- raztogt21 5y ago
  Is easily doable have 2 100k jobs without burnout. Do you really spend 8 hours coding each day?
- dlp211 5y ago
  Ok, so let's not use inflated Numbers for the trades either. According to the BLS, the median Software Developer makes $110k. The median carpenter makes $34k. There are also nearly 5x the number of Developer jobs then carpenters. It's a similar story for other trades, machinist is $47k, welder is $44k, plumber is $56k, HVAC is $50k. Then when we look at other technology jobs, PM, IT, etc, the story is similar to developers, high median salary with a multiple of jobs available over the trades.
  - mrweasel 5y ago
    I know that your talking about the US, but I assure you no Danish carpenters work for $34K, unless they are still in training. You can easily triple that $34K which places you nicely in the same area as a developer with 10 to 15 years of experience. The SF saleries are inflated BS because they are insanely high even compared to one of the most expensive countries in the world.
    - dlp211 5y ago
      Sorry, but without some sort of source, I am skeptical, but also acknowledge that different markets and economies will reward labor in different ways. So when it comes to the US this is a common talking point on the English speaking internet, "the trades pay well", "my buddy makes $150k a year as a carpenter, so you should think about becoming a carpenter too", etc. The fundamental problem is that while yes, there are people who make good money in the trades, on average, it simply isn't true, as opposed to being a software engineer, where the average employee is compensated quite well.
      - hluska 5y ago
        My sister has a trade and has talked about the salary distribution enough that I think it’s going to be very hard for anyone to ever agree on numbers. She describes it as a bimodal distribution. One (smaller) group of people with trades are willing to work anywhere whenever. They work in fly-in camps with limited work seasons and practically unlimited overtime. Since there’s nothing else to do, they log enough hours to get into double and triple time. The other (larger) group goes home after work and their overtime is limited to nonexistent. The pay is so different between the two groups that if they’re analyzed together, the statistically typical tradesperson looks nothing like the typical tradesperson.
        dlp211 5y ago
        I actually wouldn't be surprised to find that most labor markets are bi-modal (but certainly not all). Which is why I used median wage and not average wage, because the median is very likely to grab the common tradespersons compensation experience whereas the average is likely to be skewed high by the upper distribution group.
- Game_Ender 5y ago
  They are not inflated numbers they are what you can get working for a set of top companies with deep pockets competing over the same talent. It varies but 150k is entry level comp pretty much anywhere they hire in the United States [0]. It’s not “fair” but it’s worth your time to look into getting into the US tech sector. Your skills have the most market value their. 0 - http://levels.fyi http://levels.fyi
  - jshen 5y ago
    Not sure why you’re getting downvoted because this is accurate. If you are a low level dev at a big company in a major city you will get a salary of at least $100k, a bonus, and stock options. They easily combine to get you to $150k, and I’m talking entry level roles, it goes up considerably from there.
    - jdsfighter 5y ago
      Well I'm obviously in the wrong market then! Down here in Oklahoma, I'm a Senior Software Engineer, and I'm only at $110k, plus around $10k in bonuses a year. There's very few opportunities for salary increases unless I start looking for remote work outside of the state or I opt to move into a management role. Most senior salaries around here seem to be in the $95-120k range, so when I see similar numbers for "entry level" roles, it always perks me up a bit.
      - jshen 5y ago
        People make more in big cities, it’s actually been studied across the globe and the data is rather compelling.
      - cstejerean 5y ago
        Seriously consider remote then. You could easily pull in double that working remotely for a west coast tech company.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
  If you're in the US, don't be annoyed with these numbers; learn from them. If you get on LinkedIn and expect > $200k, you may be surprised by what you can achieve. You should line up several interviews all in the same week and play the offers against one another. At least one should be over $150k, and possibly over $200k. That highest number then sets a floor that everyone else will need to rise to as you negotiate. Politely ignore claims that offers will explode; they won't. Add options/RSUs, and you may be shocked at the amount of compensation you can get. You can actually do it.
  - nostrebored 5y ago
    Yeah, honestly if you're in SFBA/Seattle/NYC, this is not an unreasonable salary expectation for someone with a decade of experience. Especially if you're carefully selecting job opportunities that line up well with skill growth.
- rejectedandsad 5y ago
  I make $200k as a mid-level and that’s considered low. I’m not in NYC. Side note - fan of your username.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    What languages do you use?
- yolovoe 5y ago
  I only have 1 YOE and I'll say the numbers sound right. A friend with 2 YOE got 2 290K offers. Another friend/former co-worker with 8 YOE got a 400K+ offer. These numbers are all for remote roles for SV-based companies. You can also check salary on levels.fyi. You won't believe it, but 300K+ for new grads (undergrads) isn't even unheard of if you look at places like Citadel & Jane Street, tho of course the hiring bar is very high at these places.
- AngryData 5y ago
  People do that with every job it seems. Always somebody talking about random tradesmen making $100k+ but in the vast majority of cases they make nowhere near that.
- filoleg 5y ago
  Please stop implying that $150k+ salaries are reserved for FAANG tier companies and SF only. It might have been true 5-10 years ago (and even then, i am a bit skeptical of that lower boundary of 5 years), but it is far from the truth in 2021. Literally interviewed with a small startup (around 20 people total headcount) less than a week ago. The offer was for a base salary of $180k+grand promises of equity given out that should grow 15x and make one rich, but whatever, because equity at this point is just imaginary monopoly money worth pretty much nothing right now, so lets omit that part completely. But even with that in mind, $180k of pure cash just from base salary is more than doable. And I am not even a senior level or anything like that. Technically the company is in NYC, but the position is fully remote, which makes it even more lucrative for people who want to live in cheap COL states (no salary adjustment, which works out great for this scenario).
- bodge5000 5y ago
  This is very true, but you hear the same thing from craftsmen. Another commenter further up said that a HVAC repairmen told him that making $200k/year in that job was pretty average, and a reply to that pointed out the median was $50k/year. Not saying I disagree, but yeh, its not unique to software dev it seems
pelasaco 5y ago
Ok, but I'm not from NY/SF but I'm assuming based on the small amount of time that I spent there, that every thing is more expensive there, including housing and medical care... In Germany (Europe?) I would say that a Software Developer salary floats between 30k/y - 100k/y.
- jshen 5y ago
  Yeah, it’s more expensive in the big cities, but if you by a house you tend to profit from that increase. It’s hard to see that when in the early stages of your career, but I’m glad I stuck it out and didn’t move to a low cost area. Im in the late stages of my career and after owning my home for 15 years my mortgage is far less than rents in my area, my salary has gone up a ton over the years, and my house has appreciated a ton. If you are a dev early in your career and in a big city, stick it out. Get into a big company that gives you stock options that are worth something, but a house when you can, and start working to max out your 401k. In all likelihood it will pay off in the long run. My old boss called it the “get rich slowly plan”. As a person that grew up really poor and has been in tech over 20 years, I can assure you it pays off.
  - bradlys 5y ago
    I don’t know if the price increases will keep happening at the same historical rates. Although it isn’t out of the realm of possibility, I have a hard time believing that the houses in my neighborhood in 5-10 years will go from $2-3m to $4-6m. Real estate is a tricky thing. I wouldn’t buy it for the sake of expecting it to go up in value. I’d buy it because you need housing.
    - forty 5y ago
      Yes buy a house. If it goes up you are (potentially) rich, if it goes down, you have a house :)
    - jshen 5y ago
      It's not hard to believe. First, the big caveat, what I'm about to say ignores the possibility of huge catastrophe (environmental collapse, world war, meteor hits the earth) because if such a catastrophe happens, most of this won't matter a whole lot. Barring catastrophe, it will almost certainly go up if your time horizon is longer than 10 years. If you are in a big city, the populations are growing faster than new housing is being built. On top of that, there is no space to build many new single family homes so those will go up even more if you own one instead of a condo or townhouse. I bought my first house at the peak of the last bubble. Ten years later I sold it for more than I paid for it, and those last few years my mortgage was a fair bit lower than rents for a comparable place. Most people simply haven't wrapped their head around exponential growth. Our economy grows exponentially, and our population has historically (there are signs this might be changing). Unfortunately, I think our environment can't sustain that, but as long as it does, things will go up if your time horizon is long enough. Edit: also, I’m not suggesting that your home value will double in 10 years. Not sure where you got that idea. My point does not assume or require doubling in 10 years.
benhurmarcel 5y ago
And in Germany senior devs make 50-100k€. You can’t compare salaries without taking location into account.

crescentfresh 5y ago

Craftsmen who are willing to do a small job for me are so hard to find right now, they're busy enough NONE of them in my area need the business. Every quote I get is either overblown "to make it worth my time", or I simply get declined. Ontario, Canada.

hluska 5y ago
That’s interesting- this is the third time I’ve heard this about Ontario in less than a week. Do you have any idea what’s driving this? Another person in the same boat believes that a lot of people are fixing up homes to sell while the market is hot. Another person believes that it’s a supply problem - trades people left Ontario for Alberta, lost their jobs there and can’t afford to move back.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Ontario and BC have extremely hot housing markets and the demand is off the charts - a lot of tilers and plumbers in BC get sucked into reno contracting companies and simply have enough work to keep them busy for years. I don't think there was an exodus to Alberta - tradesfolk bring in serious cash in Canada so they can definitely afford to live in hot areas... I'd be more curious if it was actually early retirement that was driving things with tradesfolk building up enough of a nest egg that they can afford to retire early.
- jjkaczor 5y ago
  In my experience, having been a homeowner in Alberta first, then Ontario second - it's similar to software development... Most tradespeople prefer to work on new builds, large amounts of stable work, without the hastle of renovating existing structures and all of the hidden issues that are quickly exposed once the surface has been taken away. (So... technical debt...) As a contract IT consultant - sure, sometimes I take small "side-hustle" contracts if I am not swamped by my primary gig - but, I couldn't pay all mortgage if I was reliant on just taking small/odd jobs. Same goes for tradespeople.
- kortilla 5y ago
  > lost their jobs there and can’t afford to move back. This isn’t 1800. Moving back for a job is trivial when the alternative is being unemployed.

yvdriess 5y ago

Not Germany, but similar situation in Belgium: Skilled crafts here can generate a more money in the first 10-20 years of a career than what you make with a university degree desk job. One factor is that you can get into the labor force much earlier, don't neglect that 3-5 years head start when saving for your first house loan. After that, it depends if you're doing the extra hours, weekend and night shifts. After that the masters degree jobs get the advantage. The craftsmen either they worked their way into a more supervising role or are not able or willing to do the lucrative labor hours. The decline in crafts like baker or butcher is attributed to the long and weird hours, more than the pay. There are simply not enough to replace the

lostandbored 5y ago
Your comment was cut off at the end, mate.
- yvdriess 5y ago
  Right you are! + the aging work force.

yitchelle 5y ago

Comparing jobs solely based on income is a nonsense comparison. The two class of jobs are so different. Scalability, physicality, career path, longevity etc all comes into picture. The discussion has been going around in cycles for many years.

pelasaco 5y ago
What I wanted to point was that talking about "employability", people don't have to go to a university to get a degree and then try to find a job. There are other great ways to make enough money to don't have to end on OnlyFans.
- rainonmoon 5y ago
  A lot of places around the world have been in lockdowns that have made manual labour difficult, while doing sex work from home has been made much easier.

scns 5y ago

Well, some of those destroy your body in 25 years (Roofer/back, Tiler/knees), as a Carpenter you have to work with toxic laquer without getting compensated for it like Painters do. If you don't have your own shop at 40 you are pretty much screwed.

asdff 5y ago

In Germany there must be an undersupply of these laborers. Come to California and you will find electricians with years of experience, all sorts of craftsman, woodworkers, tilers, roofers, hvac specialists, approaching you with your three cans of paint and asking you for work in the home depot parking lot. Maybe that's just what happens though when you get your working experience in another country like Mexico or El Salvador and these trades in the U.S. are protected by a licensing process that doesn't care about relevant unlicensed experience.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
> approaching you with your three cans of paint and asking you for work in the home depot parking lot. Maybe that's just what happens though Where in live in the US, the housing market is exploding. It is impossible to find these workers, licensed or not.
- asdff 5y ago
  I live where the median home is 900k and there is still no shortage of handymen and general contractor labor here if you are willing to pay for work under the table. It's an interesting dynamic.
  - dcolkitt 5y ago
    It’s not an issue of how expensive houses is, it’s an issue of how many houses are being built. California has the slowest housing starts of any major state in the country. That same carpenter would have his pick of job sites in Florida.
Johnny555 5y ago
The licensing process helps make sure that the electrician that has 10 years of experience in El Salvador understands American wiring codes and practices before he does something that'll burn your house down. For sure there are common skills that all electricians share regardless of country, but there are still significant differences between countries, like in the UK ring circuits are common, but are against code in the USA. licensing process that doesn't care about relevant unlicensed experience The problem with unlicensed experience is that it provides no assurance of knowledge of code or safe wiring practice. Like when I found that my house had several MWBC's, but on one of them, the previous owner (or someone he hired) had replaced the tied-handle breakers with untied breakers, which leads to a very unsafe situation (another common mistake with MWBC's is moving breakers around and putting the hots on the same hot leg, which can lead to an overloaded neutral). Or worse, when I mapped out my outlets and found that the owner had put a 30A breaker on the 12 gauge wire leading to the garage outlets, presumably he was tripping the code compliant 20A breaker and "solved" that with a bigger breaker.

scrps 5y ago

I had to have my HVAC system repaired and I got to talking to the guy who was working on it and during the course of our conversation we started talking about pay... 100k-200k USD/yr he said wasn't unusual once you were done with school and got a little experience. I was floored, I called a family friend who does HVAC and he said that was about right. If I didn't love CS I'd be working in HVAC right now.

dcolkitt 5y ago
Median HVAC tech salary is $50k. Is it possible to make $200k or higher? Sure. But the HVAC people pulling down that comp are generally at that level primarily because of their business skills not their HVAC skills. It’d be like saying you can make a million as a waiter or cook, because of a small business owner who opened a restaurant. https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-HVAC-Technician-Salary-by-State https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-HV...

grecy 5y ago

In Australia craftsmen (called "tradies") are booking 18 months out, will only work on the things they want to (i.e. new builds, because they're easy/clean), and are easily making $100k - $150k a year. Most of them still prefer to surf than work !

SilverRed 5y ago
You have to wonder though, is this because of a genuine gap in the market where people are yet to realize there is money to be made, or is there something else that these stories are leaving out. Is everyone in the industry making this much money? If you joined the industry today, how long would it take to start making good money?
- grecy 5y ago
  You have to do a 4 year apprenticeship, during which time you won't make great money. Then you work for someone else and probably make $80k or $90k, then you start your own business. In terms of supply/demand Australians are extremely house proud and spend an insane amount of money on renovations, upgrades, etc, so all the trades are always slammed. Have been for 20 years.
  - SilverRed 5y ago
    Right so it seems somewhat similar to the profits you can make programming. Doesn't seem like a crazy get rich quick scheme, just years of hard work paying off.
    - BigJono 5y ago
      Pretty much. There's probably also an "in crowd" aspect to it as well. Everyone I know makes $100k+ as a dev here at least after a few years, but I've had Uber rides with older Indian dev drivers complaining that they can't find a job. I imagine anyone lumped into the whole "dodgy lebo/bogan/asian tradies" stereotype might struggle in a similar way.
5y ago

DrJaws 5y ago

40k in germany is not a good salary

pelasaco 5y ago
Depends where you live, depends on your life style. It is however the average salary in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_... https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/164047/umfrage/jahresarbeitslohn-in-deutschland-seit-1960/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/164047/umfrag... https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/gehaelter-so-hoch-ist-das-durchschnittseinkommen-in-deutschland/26628226.html https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/gehaelter-so-hoch-i...