8 ms·

I was working for an aerospace manufacturer for a while. We were getting 40/50 year old apprentices for the trades, guys coming off the production floor. Elect

I was working for an aerospace manufacturer for a while. We were getting 40/50 year old apprentices for the trades, guys coming off the production floor. Electricians, millwrights, CNC machinists... we couldn't find enough of them. I get it. Nobody wants to stand in front of a machine (or 5-6 machines) for 10 hours a day. Nobody wants to be in a 90 degree factory all day. Nobody wants to work 2nd or 3rd shifts. The pay isn't incredible. $25-30/hr. You get overtime. You get health insurance. You're a union member. As long as Boeing and Airbus are still flying planes, you'll have a job. But we just flat out didn't get many applicants. And the people that we'd get, would only work for a couple days, or a couple weeks. Some people think it's because there's drug testing. Some people say young people "don't want to work". All I know is if I needed a job, I'd apply.

omginternets 4y ago
I'm curious, has your employer tried paying more? There are a fair few desk jobs that pay $25-30/hr, and it's entirely possible that people are trading job stability for something that isn't so physically demanding.
- bluedino 4y ago
  There's not that many jobs that pay that much around here. However, our Seattle location has that problem. It was almost closed down because of competition. edit: can't reply to the person who replied below, but if you have a contract to sell parts to a company you can't just increase your worker pay to whatever you want and have it be sustainable.
  - jbigelow76 4y ago
    There's not that many jobs that pay that much around here. But that doesn't answer the question. If you can't get people to apply for a physically demanding job, despite other benefits like stability, unionization, etc, at $25-30/hr then it seems rational to try $35-40/hr unless the need really isn't there. We've been living with so much inflation relative to such little wage growth that if I was told things are more expensive because machinists want a wage they can use to buy a house with I would still chafe at the inflation but the justification would be a lot more palatable than "the board raised the prices and did a stock buyback with the profits".
  - rcme 4y ago
    > There's not that many jobs that pay that much around here. Hiring movers to pack your stuff and move it across the country costs a few thousand dollars, and it's never been easier to rent an apartment via online showings. Your competition is a lot broader than your immediate geographic area.
    - t-writescode 4y ago
      This is a few thousand dollars when something like half the nation can’t afford a $500 surprise bill, right?
      - tayo42 4y ago
        The target worker in this case is people in Gen z? They're young out of school and own nothing. It doesn't cost anything to move in that case. I moved across the country with a suit case. My only cost was the plane ticket
        asdff 4y ago
        So that didn't cost you nothing then. Then what did you do when you got off the plane? Presumably you paid a security deposit for an apartment and didn't just camp on BLM land. For someone with no credit history, a landlord might ask for 4 months rent as a deposit these days.
        notch656c 4y ago
        When I was working shit jobs for minimum wage in Washington I hitchhiked to North Dakota's oil rush and slept in a train yard. It literally cost me nothing. When an able bodied, single, mentally competent and healthy young person says they don't have enough money to move across country it is actually code for "I have no initiative so I will sit and cry like a pathetic child." Meanwhile people are successfully walking across the Darien gap and the Sonoran desert with entire families to find success.
        4y ago
  - cgio 4y ago
    If you have a contract to sell parts then your incentive to give higher salary would also be greater, given contracts would have penalties for failure to deliver. The companies are apparently in equilibrium with this situation, so either shortsighted in management or complain because effectively they want to pay less than they currently do.
    - bluedino 4y ago
      It's not the pay that's the problem. if it was, people that work at McDonald's or Walmart would be beating our door down to double their salary
      - cwkoss 4y ago
        Does your company train unskilled workers? Or are previous skills or credentials required?
        bluedino 4y ago
        No. They will hire people who are taking or have completed classes at the community college as apprentices occasionally. Companies are afraid to spend money training when they don't think they will have reliable people (based on past experiences)
        appletrotter 4y ago
        Given that you have more specific requirements for the role, why are you comparing your salary with that of Walmart? > don't think they will have reliable people (based on past experiences) People who have been burned become insecure. Insecurity can lead to irrationality. This is something which effects relationships.
        yterdy 4y ago
        If a large number of people who are already credentialed for a job get it, and then quit soon after, why would it be rational for someone to spend their own time and money pursuing unpaid training in the hopes of also being hired onto that job? It seems to me that companies have unrealistic ideas about what they need to do in order to attract employees. Start training again. Cross-train, even, if the boredom issue is a real one. Make work floors more hospitable (provide heaters/fans, lower noise, etc.). There was a time when typists and "computers" worked regimented shifts in sweltering/freezing, warehouse-style offices, too; very few workers will put up with being triple-layered at their keyboards or drowning in their own sweat these days. Maybe that needs to change for trades; or, businesses need to pay more to reflect the trouble people are putting themselves through for their paycheck.
  - thatjoeoverthr 4y ago
    > There's not that many jobs that pay that much around here. So, I shouldn't be around there? > you can't just increase your worker pay to whatever you want I respect that it's a challenge, but job seekers aren't responsible for solving Boeing's supply chain problems. Either the job is important enough to draw people into it, or it isn't.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    >but if you have a contract to sell parts to a company you can't just increase your worker pay to whatever you want and have it be sustainable. Renegotiating a contract sounds more sustainable than not having workers. The bottom line is always that the pay to quality of life at work is insufficient. >Nobody wants to stand in front of a machine (or 5-6 machines) for 10 hours a day. Nobody wants to be in a 90 degree factory all day. Nobody wants to work 2nd or 3rd shifts. >The pay isn't incredible. $25-30/hr. You get overtime. For this much, there are lots of office jobs in front of a computer with zero risk of injury where you can sit. And overtime is not worth much if you do not get to enjoy life outside of work.
  - peruvian 4y ago
    Your current pay rate isn't working — who cares what other jobs pay in comparison? Pay $10-15 more an hour and you will see more applicants.
    - bluedino 4y ago
      You can't do that in a union shop. You have to increase everyone's pay and there isn't money for that.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - jjk166 4y ago
    > if you have a contract to sell parts to a company you can't just increase your worker pay to whatever you want and have it be sustainable. Fire whoever quoted the job such that the contract doesn't pay enough to hire workers to fulfill the contract. They are worse than useless.
greatpostman 4y ago
25/30 hr is not great. Hate to tell you
- bluedino 4y ago
  It's relative
  - greatpostman 4y ago
    To what? Working at McDonald’s?
    - prottog 4y ago
      Relative to what other jobs in the area pay and the cost of living, of course. The competition may in fact be McDonald's paying $12 an hour or Walmart paying $14.
  - Wojtkie 4y ago
    It's extremely easy to clear more than 25-30 an hour waiting tables in a lot of places.
    - prottog 4y ago
      The places where you can easily clear more than $25-30 an hour as a waiter are also places with high cost of living and expensive housing. As a counterexample, in my area (a midsize city in a low cost-of-living state), restaurants universally suffered from sharp labor shortages last year. $25-30 an hour would let you live comfortably here, meaning they should have had a lot of applicants; therefore the money just wasn't there.
      - sethammons 4y ago
        My wife was a waitress for years (but not in the last decade or so). A four hour shift at Sizzler (yes, the stake house that everyone loves to hate) would get her about $25/hr on average easily. A decade ago. In a small town in the Inland Empire of SoCal, amongst the lowest cost of living in California.
rco8786 4y ago
> You get overtime. I think this comment represents a fundamental disconnect in cultures. The days of people "wanting" overtime are kind of gone. If I saw "overtime pay" on a job description all I am seeing is "work long hours, never see your kids, no time for hobbies, etc". Maybe that translates to me "not wanting to work", but that's the situation.
- prottog 4y ago
  There's a similar disconnect in expectations of outcomes. The same days when people "wanted" overtime were the days where people expected to get ahead by busting their asses; sure, you could work short hours, play with your kids, have time to develop a hobby, but then you wouldn't become wealthy. That option is still there today, to work only enough to sustain oneself at a lowered standard. But it seems that there is a part of the millennial/gen-Z culture that expects ass-busting outcomes without the busting of the ass.
  - rco8786 4y ago
    > ass-busting outcomes without the busting of the ass. Perhaps. But one only needs to look up to the original post to see that is not what we're talking about here. Busting of the ass for $25-30/hr plus overtime...not exactly getting wealthy here.
    - prottog 4y ago
      I don't know where GP's old employer was located, but it sounds like it's in a low cost-of-living area, the kind where homes can be had for under $100k. Earn $50-60k a year, pay off your house in maybe ten years instead of thirty, save a little each month and invest and let it compound over time; at the end you could have enough for a comfortable retirement and maybe even have some left over to hand down to your children. It's not "fly to Paris on a whim"-level wealthy, but it sounds like a life well lived to me. What is your definition of wealthy?
      - rco8786 4y ago
mianos 4y ago
It is interesting that, in a modern machine shop, these are skilled roles. Good millwrights are worth their weight in gold. A CNC machinist has to have a huge range of skills, from understanding tolerances to programming (CAD, toolpaths, gcode). These are not assembly line skills. If the work environment is so shit they leave in days I would take a guess that the problem is more than the low pay.

omginternets 4y ago

I'm curious, has your employer tried paying more? There are a fair few desk jobs that pay $25-30/hr, and it's entirely possible that people are trading job stability for something that isn't so physically demanding.

bluedino 4y ago
There's not that many jobs that pay that much around here. However, our Seattle location has that problem. It was almost closed down because of competition. edit: can't reply to the person who replied below, but if you have a contract to sell parts to a company you can't just increase your worker pay to whatever you want and have it be sustainable.
- jbigelow76 4y ago
  There's not that many jobs that pay that much around here. But that doesn't answer the question. If you can't get people to apply for a physically demanding job, despite other benefits like stability, unionization, etc, at $25-30/hr then it seems rational to try $35-40/hr unless the need really isn't there. We've been living with so much inflation relative to such little wage growth that if I was told things are more expensive because machinists want a wage they can use to buy a house with I would still chafe at the inflation but the justification would be a lot more palatable than "the board raised the prices and did a stock buyback with the profits".
- rcme 4y ago
  > There's not that many jobs that pay that much around here. Hiring movers to pack your stuff and move it across the country costs a few thousand dollars, and it's never been easier to rent an apartment via online showings. Your competition is a lot broader than your immediate geographic area.
  - t-writescode 4y ago
    This is a few thousand dollars when something like half the nation can’t afford a $500 surprise bill, right?
    - tayo42 4y ago
      The target worker in this case is people in Gen z? They're young out of school and own nothing. It doesn't cost anything to move in that case. I moved across the country with a suit case. My only cost was the plane ticket
      - asdff 4y ago
        So that didn't cost you nothing then. Then what did you do when you got off the plane? Presumably you paid a security deposit for an apartment and didn't just camp on BLM land. For someone with no credit history, a landlord might ask for 4 months rent as a deposit these days.
        notch656c 4y ago
        When I was working shit jobs for minimum wage in Washington I hitchhiked to North Dakota's oil rush and slept in a train yard. It literally cost me nothing. When an able bodied, single, mentally competent and healthy young person says they don't have enough money to move across country it is actually code for "I have no initiative so I will sit and cry like a pathetic child." Meanwhile people are successfully walking across the Darien gap and the Sonoran desert with entire families to find success.
        4y ago
- cgio 4y ago
  If you have a contract to sell parts then your incentive to give higher salary would also be greater, given contracts would have penalties for failure to deliver. The companies are apparently in equilibrium with this situation, so either shortsighted in management or complain because effectively they want to pay less than they currently do.
  - bluedino 4y ago
    It's not the pay that's the problem. if it was, people that work at McDonald's or Walmart would be beating our door down to double their salary
    - cwkoss 4y ago
      Does your company train unskilled workers? Or are previous skills or credentials required?
      - bluedino 4y ago
        No. They will hire people who are taking or have completed classes at the community college as apprentices occasionally. Companies are afraid to spend money training when they don't think they will have reliable people (based on past experiences)
        appletrotter 4y ago
        Given that you have more specific requirements for the role, why are you comparing your salary with that of Walmart? > don't think they will have reliable people (based on past experiences) People who have been burned become insecure. Insecurity can lead to irrationality. This is something which effects relationships.
        yterdy 4y ago
        If a large number of people who are already credentialed for a job get it, and then quit soon after, why would it be rational for someone to spend their own time and money pursuing unpaid training in the hopes of also being hired onto that job? It seems to me that companies have unrealistic ideas about what they need to do in order to attract employees. Start training again. Cross-train, even, if the boredom issue is a real one. Make work floors more hospitable (provide heaters/fans, lower noise, etc.). There was a time when typists and "computers" worked regimented shifts in sweltering/freezing, warehouse-style offices, too; very few workers will put up with being triple-layered at their keyboards or drowning in their own sweat these days. Maybe that needs to change for trades; or, businesses need to pay more to reflect the trouble people are putting themselves through for their paycheck.
- thatjoeoverthr 4y ago
  > There's not that many jobs that pay that much around here. So, I shouldn't be around there? > you can't just increase your worker pay to whatever you want I respect that it's a challenge, but job seekers aren't responsible for solving Boeing's supply chain problems. Either the job is important enough to draw people into it, or it isn't.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  >but if you have a contract to sell parts to a company you can't just increase your worker pay to whatever you want and have it be sustainable. Renegotiating a contract sounds more sustainable than not having workers. The bottom line is always that the pay to quality of life at work is insufficient. >Nobody wants to stand in front of a machine (or 5-6 machines) for 10 hours a day. Nobody wants to be in a 90 degree factory all day. Nobody wants to work 2nd or 3rd shifts. >The pay isn't incredible. $25-30/hr. You get overtime. For this much, there are lots of office jobs in front of a computer with zero risk of injury where you can sit. And overtime is not worth much if you do not get to enjoy life outside of work.
- peruvian 4y ago
  Your current pay rate isn't working — who cares what other jobs pay in comparison? Pay $10-15 more an hour and you will see more applicants.
  - bluedino 4y ago
    You can't do that in a union shop. You have to increase everyone's pay and there isn't money for that.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- jjk166 4y ago
  > if you have a contract to sell parts to a company you can't just increase your worker pay to whatever you want and have it be sustainable. Fire whoever quoted the job such that the contract doesn't pay enough to hire workers to fulfill the contract. They are worse than useless.

greatpostman 4y ago

25/30 hr is not great. Hate to tell you

bluedino 4y ago
It's relative
- greatpostman 4y ago
  To what? Working at McDonald’s?
  - prottog 4y ago
    Relative to what other jobs in the area pay and the cost of living, of course. The competition may in fact be McDonald's paying $12 an hour or Walmart paying $14.
- Wojtkie 4y ago
  It's extremely easy to clear more than 25-30 an hour waiting tables in a lot of places.
  - prottog 4y ago
    The places where you can easily clear more than $25-30 an hour as a waiter are also places with high cost of living and expensive housing. As a counterexample, in my area (a midsize city in a low cost-of-living state), restaurants universally suffered from sharp labor shortages last year. $25-30 an hour would let you live comfortably here, meaning they should have had a lot of applicants; therefore the money just wasn't there.
    - sethammons 4y ago
      My wife was a waitress for years (but not in the last decade or so). A four hour shift at Sizzler (yes, the stake house that everyone loves to hate) would get her about $25/hr on average easily. A decade ago. In a small town in the Inland Empire of SoCal, amongst the lowest cost of living in California.

rco8786 4y ago

> You get overtime. I think this comment represents a fundamental disconnect in cultures. The days of people "wanting" overtime are kind of gone. If I saw "overtime pay" on a job description all I am seeing is "work long hours, never see your kids, no time for hobbies, etc". Maybe that translates to me "not wanting to work", but that's the situation.

prottog 4y ago
There's a similar disconnect in expectations of outcomes. The same days when people "wanted" overtime were the days where people expected to get ahead by busting their asses; sure, you could work short hours, play with your kids, have time to develop a hobby, but then you wouldn't become wealthy. That option is still there today, to work only enough to sustain oneself at a lowered standard. But it seems that there is a part of the millennial/gen-Z culture that expects ass-busting outcomes without the busting of the ass.
- rco8786 4y ago
  > ass-busting outcomes without the busting of the ass. Perhaps. But one only needs to look up to the original post to see that is not what we're talking about here. Busting of the ass for $25-30/hr plus overtime...not exactly getting wealthy here.
  - prottog 4y ago
    I don't know where GP's old employer was located, but it sounds like it's in a low cost-of-living area, the kind where homes can be had for under $100k. Earn $50-60k a year, pay off your house in maybe ten years instead of thirty, save a little each month and invest and let it compound over time; at the end you could have enough for a comfortable retirement and maybe even have some left over to hand down to your children. It's not "fly to Paris on a whim"-level wealthy, but it sounds like a life well lived to me. What is your definition of wealthy?
    - rco8786 4y ago

mianos 4y ago

It is interesting that, in a modern machine shop, these are skilled roles. Good millwrights are worth their weight in gold. A CNC machinist has to have a huge range of skills, from understanding tolerances to programming (CAD, toolpaths, gcode). These are not assembly line skills. If the work environment is so shit they leave in days I would take a guess that the problem is more than the low pay.