9 ms·

America Is Trying to Electrify. There Aren’t Enough Electricians

67 points by lxm 4y ago

singingwolfboy 4y ago
https://archive.ph/40TMK https://archive.ph/40TMK
jdkee 4y ago
Hopefully their wages will rise significantly.
- wiseowise 4y ago
  No need to be hopeful. Next time you hire an electrician- pay them double.
notch898a 4y ago
Are the states without enough electricians making more reasonable licensing standards for becoming an electrician? You can offer $1M for electricians but if there's only a certain number of apprentice slots and you have to go through either the union or a few well guarded paths you're still fucked.
- s0rce 4y ago
  This is what I was wondering, seems like same issue with doctors, just not enough spots in training programs.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Yeah that’s the problem the unions have a conflict of interest and aren’t training enough. States like California need to just bypass the unions and train up cohorts of trades people, but our elected representatives are married to the unions so this isn’t likely to happen promptly.
  - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
    The only thing states need to do is include trades as part of high school curriculum. Personal interest and market will handle the rest. People will always go where the jobs are, and they will train themselves up if its something they believe they can do to improve their lives.
    - notch898a 4y ago
      I grew up in a midwest state where they did that exact thing. Half of those people still ended up working at arby's/etc because there were only so many apprentice slots and the sons and daughters of tradesman got them.
etskinner 4y ago
Asking for a friend: Would it be a good idea for the average jaded tech worker to learn to be an electrician? Why or why not? Pretend we're talking about someone on the low end of programming knowledge, the kind of tech worker who might be made obsolete by AI.
- camhenlin 4y ago
  The training going from apprentice to electrician is long, there’s lots of hard work, and the pay at the apprentice end isn’t good. It’s a good career to start in from a relatively young age, tougher to break into the older you get.
- amir734jj 4y ago
  No sure about being an electrician. But I know plumbers in my area make almost the same (sometimes even more than) as FAANG engineers.
  - roflyear 4y ago
    I'm not sure there are many plumbers making $300k/yr?
    - amir734jj 4y ago
      Not $300k. But healthy $200k in Midwest is a lot of money.
      - roflyear 4y ago
        Yeah I can believe $200k if you're doing commercial stuff running a crew. Unsure how much of that work there is in the Midwest. No way you're making $200k doing residential work, even in large cities. Definitely not if you aren't on your own.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      The usual progression is start working as an apprentice and then as a plumber for a larger agency, then on your own, then you become the larger agency and hire assistants and other plumbers, then you “retire”. The latter part can be quite lucrative.
rom-antics 4y ago
Maybe if we stopped looking down on people because of the color of their collar, we wouldn't be having these problems. Just a thought.
- runjake 4y ago
  Who's looking down at them? In the US, we had a period where the trades were kind of shat upon, but then those fields dried up, and perceptions shifted. Now, they're good career fields with excellent pay.
- korroziya 4y ago
  I never get surprised when I see perfectly resonable posts getting downvoted on HN. No lack of pompous snobs on here getting offended by honesty.
- aftbit 4y ago
  You might be projecting or evincing a limited life experience. Where I live, there is no shame in being a blue collar worker. If anything, I've experienced more discrimination and hate from being a software engineer than my tradespeople friends have experienced from their jobs.
- kbos87 4y ago
  This is the truth, and apparently it’s painful for some people to hear and accept. Electricians are just as skilled and may end up being more in demand than the average tech employee because of this fact. If that’s the way it plays out, good for them.
- louwrentius 4y ago
  Just like a large part of USA society, HN is full of “temporary embarrassed millionaires” trying to cozy up with the ruling class whereas most of them have more in common with the blue color worker than the millionaires/billionaires.
  - rchaud 4y ago
    I've often though that it's this mental state that results in so much resistance to talk of unionizing in software. Electricians have no such qualms.
nemo44x 4y ago
A side effect of this that people don't consider is not only is the infrastructure not able to handle everyone electrifying their cars, stoves, heat, etc. but that millions and millions of homes don't have enough amperage to support it. Most homes built before the 1980's have 100A service. Most before 1950 had 50A and many still do. If you consider that charging a couple vehicles while running electric AC/heat and using your 30A induction stove isn't even possible on millions of properties, you begin to see some of the issues. Consider it costs many thousands to upgrade a house and we have a problem. The biggest problem being just who is going to upgrade these homes. And even if you can there's a greta chance they don't have space in their panel or that they will need a special circuit added to support things. This needs an electrician and costs significant money. Solvable problem, but people who just say "make it all electric" don't even consider this.
- HALtheWise 4y ago
  I'm not sure what sort of smart meter integration is required to make this happen, but it would be sweet if the electric car could ramp down or pause it's charging near-instantly when the induction stove or AC kicks on, since those are both intermittent and the car charging can wait.
  - brianwawok 4y ago
    My EV lets me say "start charging at 11pm" My induction stove is never ever going to run at 11pm.
    - nemo44x 4y ago
      But maybe you have a couple (or more!) AC units (or heat pumps) that both happen to kick in at the same time at 11pm by chance.
      - brianwawok 4y ago
        So 100amp service is a "normal" sized house. Your heat pump and AC are what, 30 amps? So it's ok if it kicks on at 11.
asperous 4y ago
I found this article BLS article on the definition of a labor shortage interesting: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1999/03/art2full.pdf https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1999/03/art2full.pdf The definition they settled on is "when the number of workers available (the supply) increases less rapidly than the number demanded at the salaries paid in the recent past". According to this graph: https://www.careerwatch.co/blog/electrician https://www.careerwatch.co/blog/electrician Wages have gone up about 1.9% over the last 20 years which is just under inflation. That leads me to believe that there may not be a severe shortage. Are they just talking about this year? In which case I think every industry has claimed a shortage.
- bagels 4y ago
  1.9% per year?
- jmartrican 4y ago
  It could be the case that many people rely on handymen or DIY to fill in the gap. Which may lead to demand being mitigated by shoddy work. Maybe a threshold was hit. The price of electricians could have gone up so high that people do it themselves or on the cheap, which leads to stagnation in electrician salary increases. If this is the case, inflation might mitigate the problem in the long run.... when people can afford electrician rates. I'm just hypothesizing here not claiming this is what is happening.
- brodouevencode 4y ago
  This implies demand is still being met.
mfer 4y ago
Electricians are a skilled trade. Not only are there not enough, many of them are older. As they retire there aren't as many becoming electricians as there are leaving. If we want more electricians we need to embrace skilled trades as a positive path. Some details for the US are at https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/electricians.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/electric.... Note, the average income is higher than the average income per person in the US.
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  Are electrician apprenticeship spots going unfilled? If so, are they so poorly structured that they discourage applicants?
  - whstl 4y ago
    The structure of apprenticeship spots isn't the only factor able to discourage applicants. For example: in the last years people have been pushed into college by being bombarded by messages of "you'll die poor if you don't". Wages are another.
  - mfer 4y ago
    There has been a culture in the US, for some time, that everyone needs to go to college. Many high schools have removed classes that guide/prepare people into skilled trades and guidance counselors almost always push everyone to college. There is some change for that now where some schools are starting to go the other way. But, these are in the minority. It's a culture thing. I know a number of younger people who had the impression it was better to toil in a low wage job (like a sandwich shop) and pine for a college degree than to choose a skilled trades career path. To them choosing skilled trades felt like failure. This is the culture they were raised in.
    - briffle 4y ago
      that isn't the problem. the problem is, that in many 'gated' professions (electricians, plumbers, nurses, police officers, etc) the training is required, and usually restricted by the state. And usually, the classes are full, and they have to turn away many qualified applicants. While they talk about how desperately they need new people in the career.
ultrasounder 4y ago
Random Twitter joke" it's easier to find a data engineer than to find an electrician in the bayarea". There is some truth to this statement.
- jacobsenscott 4y ago
  Sure, anyone can say they are a data engineer.
AstixAndBelix 4y ago
If building the grid would take as many electricians as maintaining it we should totally incentivize people to learn the trade, they would be practically guaranteed jobs. Otherwise it would be a big bubble of people being put out of a job once the project ends
zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
My brother was an electrician for a few years. He quit because of long hours, lots of travel, and low pay. Maybe things are better now that there's a shortage? This was 10 years ago
- rchaud 4y ago
  Truckers have very similar complaints, yet there are plenty of people in WFH jobs or in air-conditioned offices thinking they're living the sweet life because they didn't get suckered into a college degree.
binarymax 4y ago
There are some programs trying to reverse this trend: https://www.thisoldhouse.com/this-old-house/21015593/building-skills-with-generation-next https://www.thisoldhouse.com/this-old-house/21015593/buildin... But I don’t know how successful they are or whether they are actually making a big impact.
physhster 4y ago
The main issue with lots of trades in the US is the onerous licensing requirements: 4 years of experience under a licensed electrician before you get a license. In most parts of the developed world, vocational training was/is seen as a lesser field despite trades absolutely making bank these days. Also, technology has evolved in lots of trades making work a lot easier than it used to be: Wago connectors and a variety of push-fittings for electricians, PEX for plumbers and so on.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > The main issue with lots of trades in the US is the onerous licensing requirements: 4 years of experience under a licensed electrician before you get a license. In most parts of the developed world, vocational training was/is seen as a lesser field despite trades absolutely making bank these days. In Germany, you need a Meister (=Master) title (not the academic degree) to start your own electrician business. Usually, after the apprenticeship which is 3.5 years you need at least another 3 years... so Germany has even stricter requirements. > Also, technology has evolved in lots of trades making work a lot easier than it used to be: Wago connectors and a variety of push-fittings for electricians, PEX for plumbers and so on. Technology maybe, but it has also become way more complex. Smart lights, smart HVAC systems, smart plumbing, energy savings requirements... planning an energy-efficient home requires insane amounts of knowledge these days, and you need to plan energy-efficient because no one will buy a house without top notch efficiency.
iz_zi 4y ago
I have fun as an electrician that is not a union electrician because I am free to choose my work.
commandlinefan 4y ago
I really wanted to be an electrician when I was growing up, but everybody in my life steered me toward the white-collar computer programming profession I've settled into. I do enjoy what I do, but I also wonder how things would have turned out if I had really pursued a career as an electrician.
paxys 4y ago
If you want to fix the shortage of electricians (and trades in general), remove the gatekeepers and open up the profession. People aren't entering the field not because it is undesirable but because the process is too damn onerous for newcomers (by design). You first have to do 6-12 months in a state-approved trade school (costs $15-20K on average in CA). Then comes 4 years of apprenticeship. But good luck finding a licensed journeyman who is hiring or actually gives a shit. And if you're lucky, you will spend the entire time doing bitch work and get paid a whopping $12/hr. It also comes with requirements like bringing your own truck to the job. Want to join a union? Rejection rates for early career apprentices is >95%. If you somehow make it through this you finally get a license and the honor of fixing people's light bulbs. Do this for a decade or two and gain experience and you'll be making like $80K/yr (https://faradaycareers.com/careers/electrician-salary https://faradaycareers.com/careers/electrician-salary). No shit smart people are studying coding instead.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  > Do this for a decade or two and gain experience and you'll be making like $80K/yr Hey, that's good evidence that the supply isn't actually very constrained. (But yeah, apprenticeship terms are bullshit.)
- mostlysimilar 4y ago
  Perhaps those barriers are higher than they should be but for something this critical it's a good thing there's process, training, and regulation. Safety and reliability are more important than speed. Software engineering could probably use a few barriers. There's some exceedingly shitty software out there getting pumped out by people who hop in to make quick money and get hired by companies who don't care and just want to pay people less. The world needs to catch up to how critical software is and course correct away from it becoming a race to the bottom.
  - jacobsenscott 4y ago
    The barriers have nothing to do with safety - they are a moat designed to keep competition out and wages high. The moat worked a generation or two ago - you could make a good middle class living as a tradesperson. It doesn't work anymore, now we just have a shortage of tradespeople and nobody wants to jump through the hoops when there are easier ways to make higher wages.
josefresco 4y ago
We're used to not having electricians readily available. In our region, which is a popular vacation destination, electricians are almost entirely occupied with servicing giant vacation homes owned by the wealthy. They simply aren't interested in small jobs, and can't make a profit servicing the locals because real estate costs are astronomical (thanks vacation home owners). Whenever I manage to actually get an electrician in our home, I make sure they get a lot done because I know it's rare and I probably won't get them back. We end up hiring "up-and-comers", and "almost retired" guys - everyone in the middle is too busy.
bigbacaloa 4y ago
Please stop calling electricity "renewable energy".
bluSCALE4 4y ago
I hear a lot of talk about older electricians but I believe we need a new generation to join and usher in the era of CAT cables for lighting. There is no reason to not be using CAT cables for lighting.
banannaise 4y ago
The modern economy is built such that it creates shortages of any worker type that comes into higher demand. When we need fewer electricians, we fire electricians and stop training new ones. This is bad for the electricians, and also means that when we need more electricians, we don't have a pool of electricians available to meet the need, and we don't have a pool of people available to train new ones. In fact, people will still be hesitant to become electricians, knowing that once the demand is fulfilled, we'll start firing them again and they won't have a great way to make a living. We need idle slack in the system, and we need some form of guaranteed income so we can maintain availability of skilled labor of all sorts.
kristjansson 4y ago
The question to answer is why the wage of an individual electrician (or tradesperson) isn't rising. A 90th percentile electrician makes <100k, and that salary has increased by ~2% per annum for decades, but customers complain about paying $xxx/hr for electricians/tradespeople in major cities, electrical/trade SMB owners seem to make $xxxK/yr, and PE shops are running around buying and rolling up electrical/trade companies. Some combination of culture and regulatory capture keep the supply depressed, but only exploitation keeps the resulting surplus from accruing to the people doing the actual work.

67 points by lxm 4y ago

singingwolfboy 4y ago

https://archive.ph/40TMK https://archive.ph/40TMK

jdkee 4y ago

Hopefully their wages will rise significantly.

wiseowise 4y ago
No need to be hopeful. Next time you hire an electrician- pay them double.

notch898a 4y ago

Are the states without enough electricians making more reasonable licensing standards for becoming an electrician? You can offer $1M for electricians but if there's only a certain number of apprentice slots and you have to go through either the union or a few well guarded paths you're still fucked.

s0rce 4y ago
This is what I was wondering, seems like same issue with doctors, just not enough spots in training programs.
jeffbee 4y ago
Yeah that’s the problem the unions have a conflict of interest and aren’t training enough. States like California need to just bypass the unions and train up cohorts of trades people, but our elected representatives are married to the unions so this isn’t likely to happen promptly.
- PM_me_your_math 4y ago
  The only thing states need to do is include trades as part of high school curriculum. Personal interest and market will handle the rest. People will always go where the jobs are, and they will train themselves up if its something they believe they can do to improve their lives.
  - notch898a 4y ago
    I grew up in a midwest state where they did that exact thing. Half of those people still ended up working at arby's/etc because there were only so many apprentice slots and the sons and daughters of tradesman got them.

etskinner 4y ago

Asking for a friend: Would it be a good idea for the average jaded tech worker to learn to be an electrician? Why or why not? Pretend we're talking about someone on the low end of programming knowledge, the kind of tech worker who might be made obsolete by AI.

camhenlin 4y ago
The training going from apprentice to electrician is long, there’s lots of hard work, and the pay at the apprentice end isn’t good. It’s a good career to start in from a relatively young age, tougher to break into the older you get.
amir734jj 4y ago
No sure about being an electrician. But I know plumbers in my area make almost the same (sometimes even more than) as FAANG engineers.
- roflyear 4y ago
  I'm not sure there are many plumbers making $300k/yr?
  - amir734jj 4y ago
    Not $300k. But healthy $200k in Midwest is a lot of money.
    - roflyear 4y ago
      Yeah I can believe $200k if you're doing commercial stuff running a crew. Unsure how much of that work there is in the Midwest. No way you're making $200k doing residential work, even in large cities. Definitely not if you aren't on your own.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    The usual progression is start working as an apprentice and then as a plumber for a larger agency, then on your own, then you become the larger agency and hire assistants and other plumbers, then you “retire”. The latter part can be quite lucrative.

rom-antics 4y ago

Maybe if we stopped looking down on people because of the color of their collar, we wouldn't be having these problems. Just a thought.

runjake 4y ago
Who's looking down at them? In the US, we had a period where the trades were kind of shat upon, but then those fields dried up, and perceptions shifted. Now, they're good career fields with excellent pay.
korroziya 4y ago
I never get surprised when I see perfectly resonable posts getting downvoted on HN. No lack of pompous snobs on here getting offended by honesty.
aftbit 4y ago
You might be projecting or evincing a limited life experience. Where I live, there is no shame in being a blue collar worker. If anything, I've experienced more discrimination and hate from being a software engineer than my tradespeople friends have experienced from their jobs.
kbos87 4y ago
This is the truth, and apparently it’s painful for some people to hear and accept. Electricians are just as skilled and may end up being more in demand than the average tech employee because of this fact. If that’s the way it plays out, good for them.
louwrentius 4y ago
Just like a large part of USA society, HN is full of “temporary embarrassed millionaires” trying to cozy up with the ruling class whereas most of them have more in common with the blue color worker than the millionaires/billionaires.
- rchaud 4y ago
  I've often though that it's this mental state that results in so much resistance to talk of unionizing in software. Electricians have no such qualms.

nemo44x 4y ago

A side effect of this that people don't consider is not only is the infrastructure not able to handle everyone electrifying their cars, stoves, heat, etc. but that millions and millions of homes don't have enough amperage to support it. Most homes built before the 1980's have 100A service. Most before 1950 had 50A and many still do. If you consider that charging a couple vehicles while running electric AC/heat and using your 30A induction stove isn't even possible on millions of properties, you begin to see some of the issues. Consider it costs many thousands to upgrade a house and we have a problem. The biggest problem being just who is going to upgrade these homes. And even if you can there's a greta chance they don't have space in their panel or that they will need a special circuit added to support things. This needs an electrician and costs significant money. Solvable problem, but people who just say "make it all electric" don't even consider this.

HALtheWise 4y ago
I'm not sure what sort of smart meter integration is required to make this happen, but it would be sweet if the electric car could ramp down or pause it's charging near-instantly when the induction stove or AC kicks on, since those are both intermittent and the car charging can wait.
- brianwawok 4y ago
  My EV lets me say "start charging at 11pm" My induction stove is never ever going to run at 11pm.
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    But maybe you have a couple (or more!) AC units (or heat pumps) that both happen to kick in at the same time at 11pm by chance.
    - brianwawok 4y ago
      So 100amp service is a "normal" sized house. Your heat pump and AC are what, 30 amps? So it's ok if it kicks on at 11.

asperous 4y ago

I found this article BLS article on the definition of a labor shortage interesting: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1999/03/art2full.pdf https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1999/03/art2full.pdf The definition they settled on is "when the number of workers available (the supply) increases less rapidly than the number demanded at the salaries paid in the recent past". According to this graph: https://www.careerwatch.co/blog/electrician https://www.careerwatch.co/blog/electrician Wages have gone up about 1.9% over the last 20 years which is just under inflation. That leads me to believe that there may not be a severe shortage. Are they just talking about this year? In which case I think every industry has claimed a shortage.

bagels 4y ago
1.9% per year?
jmartrican 4y ago
It could be the case that many people rely on handymen or DIY to fill in the gap. Which may lead to demand being mitigated by shoddy work. Maybe a threshold was hit. The price of electricians could have gone up so high that people do it themselves or on the cheap, which leads to stagnation in electrician salary increases. If this is the case, inflation might mitigate the problem in the long run.... when people can afford electrician rates. I'm just hypothesizing here not claiming this is what is happening.
brodouevencode 4y ago
This implies demand is still being met.

mfer 4y ago

Electricians are a skilled trade. Not only are there not enough, many of them are older. As they retire there aren't as many becoming electricians as there are leaving. If we want more electricians we need to embrace skilled trades as a positive path. Some details for the US are at https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/electricians.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/electric.... Note, the average income is higher than the average income per person in the US.

Scoundreller 4y ago
Are electrician apprenticeship spots going unfilled? If so, are they so poorly structured that they discourage applicants?
- whstl 4y ago
  The structure of apprenticeship spots isn't the only factor able to discourage applicants. For example: in the last years people have been pushed into college by being bombarded by messages of "you'll die poor if you don't". Wages are another.
- mfer 4y ago
  There has been a culture in the US, for some time, that everyone needs to go to college. Many high schools have removed classes that guide/prepare people into skilled trades and guidance counselors almost always push everyone to college. There is some change for that now where some schools are starting to go the other way. But, these are in the minority. It's a culture thing. I know a number of younger people who had the impression it was better to toil in a low wage job (like a sandwich shop) and pine for a college degree than to choose a skilled trades career path. To them choosing skilled trades felt like failure. This is the culture they were raised in.
  - briffle 4y ago
    that isn't the problem. the problem is, that in many 'gated' professions (electricians, plumbers, nurses, police officers, etc) the training is required, and usually restricted by the state. And usually, the classes are full, and they have to turn away many qualified applicants. While they talk about how desperately they need new people in the career.

ultrasounder 4y ago

Random Twitter joke" it's easier to find a data engineer than to find an electrician in the bayarea". There is some truth to this statement.

jacobsenscott 4y ago
Sure, anyone can say they are a data engineer.

AstixAndBelix 4y ago

If building the grid would take as many electricians as maintaining it we should totally incentivize people to learn the trade, they would be practically guaranteed jobs. Otherwise it would be a big bubble of people being put out of a job once the project ends

zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago

My brother was an electrician for a few years. He quit because of long hours, lots of travel, and low pay. Maybe things are better now that there's a shortage? This was 10 years ago

rchaud 4y ago
Truckers have very similar complaints, yet there are plenty of people in WFH jobs or in air-conditioned offices thinking they're living the sweet life because they didn't get suckered into a college degree.

binarymax 4y ago

There are some programs trying to reverse this trend: https://www.thisoldhouse.com/this-old-house/21015593/building-skills-with-generation-next https://www.thisoldhouse.com/this-old-house/21015593/buildin... But I don’t know how successful they are or whether they are actually making a big impact.

physhster 4y ago

The main issue with lots of trades in the US is the onerous licensing requirements: 4 years of experience under a licensed electrician before you get a license. In most parts of the developed world, vocational training was/is seen as a lesser field despite trades absolutely making bank these days. Also, technology has evolved in lots of trades making work a lot easier than it used to be: Wago connectors and a variety of push-fittings for electricians, PEX for plumbers and so on.

mschuster91 4y ago
> The main issue with lots of trades in the US is the onerous licensing requirements: 4 years of experience under a licensed electrician before you get a license. In most parts of the developed world, vocational training was/is seen as a lesser field despite trades absolutely making bank these days. In Germany, you need a Meister (=Master) title (not the academic degree) to start your own electrician business. Usually, after the apprenticeship which is 3.5 years you need at least another 3 years... so Germany has even stricter requirements. > Also, technology has evolved in lots of trades making work a lot easier than it used to be: Wago connectors and a variety of push-fittings for electricians, PEX for plumbers and so on. Technology maybe, but it has also become way more complex. Smart lights, smart HVAC systems, smart plumbing, energy savings requirements... planning an energy-efficient home requires insane amounts of knowledge these days, and you need to plan energy-efficient because no one will buy a house without top notch efficiency.

iz_zi 4y ago

I have fun as an electrician that is not a union electrician because I am free to choose my work.

commandlinefan 4y ago

I really wanted to be an electrician when I was growing up, but everybody in my life steered me toward the white-collar computer programming profession I've settled into. I do enjoy what I do, but I also wonder how things would have turned out if I had really pursued a career as an electrician.

paxys 4y ago

If you want to fix the shortage of electricians (and trades in general), remove the gatekeepers and open up the profession. People aren't entering the field not because it is undesirable but because the process is too damn onerous for newcomers (by design). You first have to do 6-12 months in a state-approved trade school (costs $15-20K on average in CA). Then comes 4 years of apprenticeship. But good luck finding a licensed journeyman who is hiring or actually gives a shit. And if you're lucky, you will spend the entire time doing bitch work and get paid a whopping $12/hr. It also comes with requirements like bringing your own truck to the job. Want to join a union? Rejection rates for early career apprentices is >95%. If you somehow make it through this you finally get a license and the honor of fixing people's light bulbs. Do this for a decade or two and gain experience and you'll be making like $80K/yr (https://faradaycareers.com/careers/electrician-salary https://faradaycareers.com/careers/electrician-salary). No shit smart people are studying coding instead.

marcosdumay 4y ago
> Do this for a decade or two and gain experience and you'll be making like $80K/yr Hey, that's good evidence that the supply isn't actually very constrained. (But yeah, apprenticeship terms are bullshit.)
mostlysimilar 4y ago
Perhaps those barriers are higher than they should be but for something this critical it's a good thing there's process, training, and regulation. Safety and reliability are more important than speed. Software engineering could probably use a few barriers. There's some exceedingly shitty software out there getting pumped out by people who hop in to make quick money and get hired by companies who don't care and just want to pay people less. The world needs to catch up to how critical software is and course correct away from it becoming a race to the bottom.
- jacobsenscott 4y ago
  The barriers have nothing to do with safety - they are a moat designed to keep competition out and wages high. The moat worked a generation or two ago - you could make a good middle class living as a tradesperson. It doesn't work anymore, now we just have a shortage of tradespeople and nobody wants to jump through the hoops when there are easier ways to make higher wages.

josefresco 4y ago

We're used to not having electricians readily available. In our region, which is a popular vacation destination, electricians are almost entirely occupied with servicing giant vacation homes owned by the wealthy. They simply aren't interested in small jobs, and can't make a profit servicing the locals because real estate costs are astronomical (thanks vacation home owners). Whenever I manage to actually get an electrician in our home, I make sure they get a lot done because I know it's rare and I probably won't get them back. We end up hiring "up-and-comers", and "almost retired" guys - everyone in the middle is too busy.

bigbacaloa 4y ago

Please stop calling electricity "renewable energy".

bluSCALE4 4y ago

I hear a lot of talk about older electricians but I believe we need a new generation to join and usher in the era of CAT cables for lighting. There is no reason to not be using CAT cables for lighting.

banannaise 4y ago

The modern economy is built such that it creates shortages of any worker type that comes into higher demand. When we need fewer electricians, we fire electricians and stop training new ones. This is bad for the electricians, and also means that when we need more electricians, we don't have a pool of electricians available to meet the need, and we don't have a pool of people available to train new ones. In fact, people will still be hesitant to become electricians, knowing that once the demand is fulfilled, we'll start firing them again and they won't have a great way to make a living. We need idle slack in the system, and we need some form of guaranteed income so we can maintain availability of skilled labor of all sorts.

kristjansson 4y ago

The question to answer is why the wage of an individual electrician (or tradesperson) isn't rising. A 90th percentile electrician makes <100k, and that salary has increased by ~2% per annum for decades, but customers complain about paying $xxx/hr for electricians/tradespeople in major cities, electrical/trade SMB owners seem to make $xxxK/yr, and PE shops are running around buying and rolling up electrical/trade companies. Some combination of culture and regulatory capture keep the supply depressed, but only exploitation keeps the resulting surplus from accruing to the people doing the actual work.