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"We need more tradespeople" seems to be an evergreen news article. My brother in law is an electrician. He is paid alright, enough to live on. But there are HU

• mixmastamyk 4y ago
  > He does not receive health insurance. He does not get paid vacation. Sounds like software contracting.
• eddsh1994 4y ago
  This is why Unions exist, no? Personally I sometimes wonder if I'd have enjoyed plumbing water more than plumbing code as I'd be meeting more people face to face, physically active, and it can get surprisingly complex (Berkeley, I think, offers a postgrad cert in plumbing buildings like sky scrapers which I saw advertised the other day)
  • Dig1t 4y ago
    Yes! I grew up in California and my dad was a tradesperson. The union is the only reason my siblings and I had health insurance growing up. He never got any vacation time though, insurance was the main benefit of the union I think. Unfortunately, other states in the US have much weaker unions or none at all, especially in the south.
    • eddsh1994 4y ago
      I am English but moved to the Bay Area a few years back and became friends with a union electrician from Alabama so this conversation comes up a little - it sounded like unions are supported in the south even if they look a little different. However I’m not American and am not certain about that at all :)
      • nebula8804 4y ago
        Does not seem like given a lot of the auto factories in the south are not unionized and multiple attempts to unionize them failed because the workers reject them. Then there was that famous failed attempt at unionizing the Amazon warehouse in Alabama? I think? Yeah there was a lot of shady stuff going down but it just does not look good among all the other failures.
      • heavyset_go 4y ago
        States in the south have laws that neuter unions, and some that make unionizing for certain fields/roles illegal. Unions might exist, but they might not have the same teeth they'd have in states with friendlier organizing laws.
        • Bloating 4y ago
          Right to Work laws allow employees to make an individual choice whether to join a union in a unionized shop.
          • heavyset_go 4y ago
            No one is forced to take a union job if they don't want to, those same laws break private contracts between unions and employers and force unions to represent non-dues paying employees.
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  • UncleMeat 4y ago
    Yes. My brother in law lives in SC where unionization and labor protection is especially weak. I don't think that the balance of power is going to shift away from the bosses and towards him any time soon.
  • jfengel 4y ago
    Probably not. Maybe you just really like people, but in a lot of trades, the people you meet are grumpy. They don't want to meet you; they just want their problem solved. Either they're building a new thing (and trying to meet an aggressive schedule... and are probably behind by the time they bring in the plumbers) or repairing an old thing (and dealing with people who are cranky that the thing failed). It's probably not as bad as tech support, where you can guarantee that the person on the other end of the phone is angry. But it's probably at least as bad as retail, and nobody ever says "I love meeting people so I'll go handle cash from strangers". I know that there are extroverts in the world who get a charge out of meeting new people every day. And there's a big bonus to not sitting in a chair in front of a screen, especially if you're one of those. But I've got a feeling you're a lot happier with coding-level salaries and meeting strangers after you clock out.
    • heavyset_go 4y ago
      And you'll have clients losing their minds that their plumber charges ~$100/hr for "simple" things that the client can't or won't do themselves.
  • peruvian 4y ago
    Tech people always say this but forget that being a plumber means being on their knees wading thru poop water and likely being unable to work when you reach a certain, fairly young age. I get it, trades are important, but let's not glamorize them.
    • jonatron 4y ago
      Not all countries have toilets that block as easily as American / Canadian toilets. So wading through dirty water is less likely in the UK for example.
      • aksss 4y ago
        Well, being an outhouse carpenter sucks too!
    • eddsh1994 4y ago
      I have done far worse than wade through poop water on my knees when I worked as a teenager on a paintball site / as a rifleman in the army! But to each their own :)
      • brianwawok 4y ago
        Wading through poorly made npm packages with no docs is not that far from literal poop water. Maybe harder to wash off in a shower.
    • dinkumthinkum 4y ago
      Nothing against them but I think glamorizing trades seems like a kind of virtue signal.
      • eddsh1994 4y ago
        I have no issue glamorizing potentially six figure salaries that are useful to society! Personally I view software as a trade with a bubble salary range atm, but think it’ll pivot towards a trade over the next decade or two.
  • colechristensen 4y ago
    The people I’ve known in trade unions locally spent a lot of time not working waiting on the bench for the next job. The work was much closer to being a short term contractor not at all in control of finding new work.
  • nemo44x 4y ago
    There's plenty of tradesmen in unions. And plenty of other tradesmen willing to undercut them.
• gsatic 4y ago
  It's not going to get more attractive. This is where some imaginative immigration policies can help.
  • cudgy 4y ago
    By imaginative, do you mean restrictive?
    • convolvatron 4y ago
      I assume the opposite. like other sectors in the US economy (MDs), its likely we're going to have to keep importing people to take care of us since we're all focussed on winning and don't have time to wash our own socks or bend our own conduit.
      • nebula8804 4y ago
        Demographic implosion will catch up to the third world countries. Then the US is royally screwed. Some places like China its already too late.
• mfer 4y ago
  This isn't the case for all trades people. It might be a bad area or a bad employer. I've know trades folks who are electricians, plumbers, carpenters, work in road construction, etc. They typically work reasonable hours, have medical, and are paid at or above the median income for where they live. They didn't rack up debt getting into this either. This is not a bad deal for many people.
  • brightball 4y ago
    Especially if you are remotely trustworthy and have good people skills. The good tradespeople I know are recommended by everybody else I know and constantly backlogged. Plumbers, HVAC, Electricians, General Contractors, etc
    • brewtide 4y ago
      I'm a house painter, and I'm about a year out from now. It's better than no work, but it's rather insane. "I'd love to but it will be 8 months or so and I can't imagine you'd want to wait that long". "Oh no, well wait!". And the list grows longer.
      • brightball 4y ago
        Probably a good sign you can increase your prices too. Congrats on all the business!
  • ogre_battle 4y ago
    > it might be a bad area or a bad employer. Outside of big cities, there may not be enough demand, esp. consistent demand, to justify good pay and bennies. My uncle is a welder, has a lot of specializations including some underwater stuff. No shortage of offers... for 6 weeks of work in nowhere-ville, often requiring you to supply your own transport and housing. 3 months in FL, 6 months in NC, 8 weeks in GA. And they all pay crap.
    • mfer 4y ago
• falcolas 4y ago
  > It isn't a bad career But there is a finite end to the career - when your body gives out. That's the biggest problem with the trades, you're selling your health and body. And eventually the body parts will wear out, on a schedule decided as much by genetics as how you live.
  • Avshalom 4y ago
    >there is a finite end to the career this actually brings to mind something else: I think the idea of a career is dead for a lot of the 40 and under set. The idea that you'll have the same job for decades is just nonsense so any job that feels too specific also feels like a it'll bite you in the ass in 5 years.
    • falcolas 4y ago
      A good point. I think it's even dead for the over 40 crowd, as they try and slide into a new career which they can work part time and make a living on. Given how questionable retirement as a reality is these days.
      • ghaff 4y ago
        In general, reasonably lucrative part-time work for someone coming from a professional role is tricky. And even more so if you really want to have fairly fine-grained control around both weekly workload and longer vacations. Well-paying work that lets you just pick and choose something here and there and then take a month off if you feel like it are pretty uncommon.
        • falcolas 4y ago
          You're 100% not wrong. I think in many cases through it's supplementing insufficient retirement funds, so even a low skill low wage part time job (making/selling art, garden fruits/vegetables, foods, etc) may be sufficient to provide enough runway for existing retirement funds.
• commandlinefan 4y ago
  > His company pushes hard to get jobs finished fast, causing people to cut safety corners Man, this bothers me in software, where physical human safety isn't even on the line. I can't even imagine dealing with that when somebody could actually die.
  • verdenti 4y ago
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• JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > are no meaningful raises Doesn't the career path in the trades lead to owning your own business? Obviously, not for everyone. But the scope for advancement and riches is certainly there.
  • SoftTalker 4y ago
    Yes, this is where/how you make money in the trades. Or you specialize in something esoteric and potentially dangerous like underwater welding or high voltage linesman. If you stay as a line worker in a union you will do OK but won't be rich (unless you live frugally and save/invest a lot).
  • UncleMeat 4y ago
    Not by default. A huge number of people work for corps. And they don’t teach you small business management in trade schools.
• quickthrowman 4y ago
  Your brother in law should join the IBEW (or leave Arizona or whatever state he is in that has weak unions) as union electricians receive all of the things he does not (I manage union electricians). Is he doing residential wiring? That’s the bottom of the barrel for electrical work, unfortunately. The commercial market is where the bulk of the good work is.
• barbazoo 4y ago
  > He is paid alright, enough to live on. But there are HUGE downsides. He does not receive health insurance. He does not get paid vacation. First I thought the person you were referring to was self-employed but if they're an employee, why don't they get vacation or health insurance?
• WalterBright 4y ago
  Every time I employ a tradesman to fix something around here, I get an astonishingly high bill.
  • vanderZwan 4y ago
    The company sending you a high bill doesn't automatically mean the guy who fixed your house gets paid well though, does it?
    • WalterBright 4y ago
      They were one man shops. 20 years ago, the going rate for installing a socket in an existing wired and ready to go junction box was $50. It's about a 5 minute job. I know it's about 5 minutes because I've done a lot of them myself. I'm sure prices have gone up a lot in the last couple decades.
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      • lotsofpulp 4y ago
        The electrician is not charging to do a 5 minute job. They do not know that when they accept the job over the phone. They are charging for their time to drive to and from you, the possibility that the job is more involved than described, and the liability from doing the job. And the opportunity cost of not accepting a different job due to your job.
        • WalterBright 4y ago
          That's the price I was quoted to do the whole house, not one socket. $50 per outlet. If I hired one to come out and do one socket, I'd be sure to get a $200 site visit charge added on.
          • SoftTalker 4y ago
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• nemo44x 4y ago
  Here's the problem with it all, tradesmen are all too eager to undercut each other for some reason. There's so much work, especially for trades that require a license that anyone that isn't charging premium money is a fool. And there's lots of foolish tradesmen with short term thinking and eager to sell their services as a low price option. Often with low price work to boot. You rarely see older guys going for cheap and it's because they know it's a foolish thing to do.
  • Bloating 4y ago
    Free market competition should be outlawed! Collusion should be legal. Unless I don't like your virtue signals, then you're a greedy capitalist robber baron!
    • lmm 4y ago
      When you "compete" by working in a way that damages the worker's health, yes, that should be outlawed. (Negative externalities are the fancy economics term) Large corporations are already legalised collusion. Allowing those with competing interests to "collude" at the same level is a necessary counterbalance to that.
    • nemo44x 4y ago
      I'm not saying anything about that. What I'm saying is a decent amount of tradesmen don't know what they are worth and undercharge. In most instances it's because they underestimate the scope of the job they're taking on and are eager to get business. But business is generally easy to get in non-recession times and they could bid higher and still win jobs. It's often inexperienced guys and it's why you see so many startup construction/trade companies go out of business quickly. There's business - they just don't know how to run one.
• pleb_nz 4y ago
  Is this more of a US issue? I'm ex tradesman and know a lot of tradespeople in my part of the world and they're often some of the best off and fittest people I know. Being on your feet all day and moving around seems to be good for the human body rather than sitting behind a desk for 8 hours which we now is incredibly bad for you.
  • Workaccount2 4y ago
    There is a spectrum here. Plenty of tradesmen "living the retired life" at 50 with two blown knees and a bad back.
  • Bloating 4y ago
    Its a reddit issue
  • Karrot_Kream 4y ago
    Depends on your personality and the jobs you've taken. I know auto mechanics wrenching it into their late 60s. A friend's dad owns grocery stores and still does stocking in his late 60s. He puts our step count to shame. I also know fly-by-night moving companies that work kids into the ground by having them lift things in all sorts of bad positions. I know impatient people who will lift with bad form because they're in a rush. (I don't want to imply that these are negative personality traits. Many, many people have a hard time dealing with the patience required to lift things properly for a job.)
• footlose_3815 4y ago
  This is why Unions are important, and electricians have the IBEW has an option.
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• exabrial 4y ago
  > He does not receive health insurance. He does not get paid vacation He is working for the wrong people! I was given the option for both when I was in the trades, and I wasn't even part of a union!
• dudul 4y ago
  Let's all evaluate trades people based on this one anecdote!
• rayiner 4y ago
  Define “white collar job.” Answering the phones at a law firm is now a job that requires a four year college degree. But it pays very little compared to a skilled trade.
• viraptor 4y ago
  I feel like it's a weird situation when the pay is low, but there is overtime available and there's pressure to work fast. Why wouldn't a company raise prices, increase pay and slow down if there's more than a standard day of work available and customers ready/waiting? Is it more of industry issue or that specific company issue then?
  • themitigating 4y ago
    Because the business can use overtime to remain flexible with labor costs. For example; for two weeks they need 60 hours each, the next three week only 40. It's cheaper to have one employee with overtime then hire two employees.
  • ckvjdonee 4y ago
    Why is a market behaving in an efficient manner a weird situation to you? Lower prices for consumers and faster job completion is good for everyone. Use regulation to fix the safety issues and protect workers from exploitation. Low barrier to entry means if prices rise, more people join the industry and drive prices down again. When overtime and overworking becomes too much, people exit or don't join and prices rise.
    • viraptor 4y ago
      In practice I see difference in prices between local companies and there are reasons to not go for the cheapest price. It doesn't make market inefficient if you say you do a better job and will charge more than competition. Some people won't choose you, but then it's about setting the correct pricing/demand point. If there's more demand than can be fulfilled, the prices can raise - that's as market-efficient as it gets.
  • Manuel_D 4y ago
    Because business is a market. If your competitors are offering cheaper, faster jobs why would they pick you? As long as the corner cutting doesn't affect the customer, the latter is a better deal. The cynical reality is that safety violations affecting workers don't really matter to most customers, the end result and the cost of obtain it do. The more realistic scenario is less pay in exchange for slower hours.
• teruakohatu 4y ago
  > It isn't a bad career, but there are major reasons why it would be unattractive. Tell him to look at moving to New Zealand. Good salary (for NZ), 4 weeks paid vacation and plenty of paid public holidays (mandatory) and a lot of jobs going. No health insurance but few people here have health insurance, and anything accident related is covered by a mandatory insurance (basically a tax) scheme. https://www.seek.co.nz/sparky-jobs https://www.seek.co.nz/sparky-jobs
• idontpost 4y ago
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• WheelsAtLarge 4y ago
  It's also highly dangerous. I knew a guy that was the electrician to a 50+ year old high rise. He could not turn off the power, don't know why, so he worked with live current all the time. He told me that he would go to the main power source and he could hear it crackle, while he worked on it,since there was so much current going through it. He joked about it but, ya, no thank you.
  • sbaiddn 4y ago
    I dont know about residential buildings, but working on live circuits is a thing, and there are techniques to do it safish-ly. Namely dont touch two wires and dont be ground. Linesmen do it quite a lot. Linesmen is also one of the most dangerous jobs
    • dieselgate 4y ago
      not trying to be a smarta$5 but suppose welding is working with a live circuit too
      • tlb 4y ago
        Arc, TIG, and MIG welding is fairly low voltage, like 15 - 30 volts. To start the arc there's a brief high-voltage high-frequency burst, but it's current limited. So it's pretty safe as far as electrocution goes.
        • b112 4y ago
          http://www.hydroquebec.com/learning/transport/grandes-distances.html http://www.hydroquebec.com/learning/transport/grandes-distan... Not to mention, 735kV, yes kilovolts, is a lot of juice.
        • pauldardeau 4y ago
          I'm a hobby welder (going on 2 years). My inverter stick welder will go to 90 amps on a 120V outlet and up to 180 amps on a 240V outlet. It's not uncommon for engine drive welders (like what you see on trucks) to go up to 250 or 300 amps. 2 things that make welding relatively safe from electrocution are: (1) the steel you're welding on makes a much better path for electricity flow than your body (especially when you're wearing heavy welding gloves), (2) welding in a dry environment (not raining, not standing in water, not drenched in sweat, etc.).
• lr4444lr 4y ago
  Why doesn't he join a union shop?
• faangiq 4y ago
  The field is like this because it’s populated by lazy and stupid people.
• specialp 4y ago
  There is another aspect too. It completely breaks your body. Electricians get carpal tunnel worse than information workers by constantly squeezing lineman pliers, knees get shot. Your career path is work like that and hopefully before you get older, start your own company and hire younger people to do the body breaking work. But not everyone in the field will end up doing that so many end up in bad shape
  • AlwaysRock 4y ago
    And you have to go do it. I love working behind a computer. I sit in a chair. Waking up at 5am to go to a client site to do some physical labor 40+ hours a week for my entire life sounds like hell. Even if the money was incredible it would suck.
    • clnq 4y ago
      Perhaps it's a case of "the grass is always greener", but before I became a software engineer, I felt much healthier doing a physical job.
      • mnky9800n 4y ago
        I felt healthier stacking boxes but I really felt better when I moved close enough to work to cycle every day.
      • paxys 4y ago
        It may feel better at the time but repetitive motions in most physical jobs will eventually catch up with your body. In an office job you can exercise on your own terms and without long term chronic pain.
        • nverno 4y ago
          I don't know, when I used to work on farms, the old guys were a lot healthier than most of the people I see in tech nowadays. Although, most of that work isn't unhealthily repetitive, like jack-hammering or something, so perhaps not a great example. But, use-it-or-lose-it is a real thing.
• nimbius 4y ago
  hi, tradesworker here (IMU union diesel mechanic.) i learn and practice python and pretend i understand ai/ml on hn. your brother in law sounds stout, and at risk of getting into a bar fight i gotta say it: it just doesnt sound like hes there yet. if he had trade certifications, state certs and experience on his own, there isnt a shop i can think of in the midwest that wouldnt offer everything the HN hacker crowd gets at a white collar interview. hell, skilled cert welders in the midwest pull down enough to pay off a new f250 in a couple of years. electricians ARE a valid and important trade, and linemen are the pornstars among their ranks. he needs to seek out a better shop too, but that goes without saying. the progress is: work hard, get promoted to job captain or foreman, and eventually if you want start your own shop. if not you eventually wind up a shop manager or something with more pay than title.
  • unholythree 4y ago
    I’ve also seen plenty of career helpers, but they’re almost always screw-ups, unambitious, or both. After all half of the population is sub 100 IQ, and some otherwise smart people just like slamming beers, chasing tail, and showing up hungover every shift more then getting promoted. Making journeyman in most trades around here means a comfortable middle class salary, sending you kids to the less expensive private schools, a boat if you save up. Beats what you’d make being a teacher, social worker, or librarian.
• bluSCALE4 4y ago
  The problem with a lot of trades people is that they think they need to work for other people. I think anyone in a trade should be working on the side and charging what they're worth. I'm a programmer and I typically do my own work around the house. Just recently, I redid my plumbing so that it'd look nice aesthetically and function a bit better. My problem is that most tradesman I come across will sell themselves short but not offer to do the best jobs. For example, I had someone redo the waste water drain because of how he said the job needed to be done. At the end, he messed up and sorta did a safe but half ass job that I could have done. If I had known he'd do such shotty work, I'd just have paid double and gotten someone to add iron pipes.
• dools 4y ago
  You should tell him to move to Australia. Tradies in Australia are like royalty.
  • smabie 4y ago
    How much do they get paid?
    • TapWaterBandit 4y ago
      6 figure salaries are very common from a reasonably young age. Very strong trades unions.
      • dools 4y ago
        Unions aren't even the half of it, they're just so in demand. Strong bank profitability and lending are basically the bedrock of our economy, people's homes have appreciated so much they're able to borrow obscene amounts to renovate, and the construction industry as a result is incredibly strong.
• jameshush 4y ago
  Get in a union shop. My father was making between $100k-$150k/year USD (we were in Canada) in a SUPER low cost of living area as an electrician in one of the car factories. He retired 10 years ago so I imagine the salaries have gone up. Now he's living in Spain off a pension from the company, with company health insurance, playing golf everyday.
• jdkee 4y ago
  That is why we have the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
• emodendroket 4y ago
  Everyone thinks more kids should be tradesmen but few people seem to mean their own.
• atlgator 4y ago
  Can you elaborate on his credentials? Is he licensed? The apprenticeship path for any trade can be grueling. You're doing all the grunt labor for low wages because you are getting on-the-job training. You are also YOUNG and able-bodied, typically 18 right out of high school if not younger through a vo-tech. But once you reach to that journeyman level at 3-4 years and get your State License that's when your pay really increases, especially if you start your own company.
• Tangurena2 4y ago
  Those "we need more X" news articles are the standard way for the owners of wealth to complain about high wages - and to encourage younger folks to pick those careers. In state with occupational licensing for trades, they do have decent wages. In states without that licensing, hiring immigrant workers is the way to drive down wages/costs.