5 ms·

Enrollment at trade schools is expected to grow

65 points by m-hodges 1y ago

emseetech 1y ago
For junior devs wondering if they picked the right path, remember that the world still needs software, ai still breaks down at even a small bit of complexity, and the first ones to abandon this career will be those who only did it for money anyways and they’ll do the same once the trades have a rough year (as they always do). In the meantime keep learning and practicing cs fundamentals, ignore hype and build something interesting.
- echelon 1y ago
  AI coding isn't eating the industry, offshoring is. Inflation, end of ZIRP, and IRS section 174 kicked this off back in 2022 before AI coding was even a thing. Junior devs won't lose jobs to AI. They'll lose jobs to the global market. American software developers have lost the stranglehold on the job market.
  - linotype 1y ago
    Section 174 has been restored, thankfully. We’ll see if the damage is done.
    - echelon 1y ago
      Fingers crossed. The interest rate is still a tremendously bad problem. If it had been ZIRP and low interest, companies would have just borrowed to cover the amortization that 174 introduced. But unfortunately money doesn't grow on trees anymore.
- cyanydeez 1y ago
  Also, morals and ethics are optional!
- tombert 1y ago
  I think the concern isn't so much about the current state of AI replacing software engineers, but more "what if it keeps getting better at this same rate?" I don't really agree with the reasoning [1], and I don't think we can expect this same rate of progress indefinitely, but I do understand the concern. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
  - echelon 1y ago
    If software developers wind up replaced by AI, I think it's safe to say every industry's labor will be replaced. Trade jobs won't be far behind, because robotics will be nipping at their heels. If software falls, everything falls. But as we've seen, these models can't do the job themselves. They're best thought of as an exoskeleton that requires a pilot. They make mistakes, and those mistakes multiply into a mess if a human isn't around. They don't get the big picture, and it's not clear they ever will with the current models and techniques. The only field that has truly been disrupted is graphics design and art. The image and video models are sublime and truly deliver 10,000x speed, cost, and talent reductions. This is probably for three reasons: 1. There's so much straightforward training data 2. The laws of optics and structure seem correspondingly easier than the rules governing intelligence. Simple animals evolved vision hundreds of millions of years ago, and we have all the math and algorithmic implementations already. Not so, for intelligence. 3. Mistakes don't multiply. You can brush up the canvas easily and deliver the job as a smaller work than, say, a 100k LOC program with failure modes.
    - tombert 1y ago
      I think this is making an assumption that the number of potential jobs is fixed. I don't agree with that assumption. I think as people learn how to use these tools then more industries pop up to use those tools. ETA: You updated your post and I think I agree with most of what you said after you updated.
    - bc569a80a344f9c 1y ago
      > If software developers wind up replaced by AI, I think it's safe to say every industry's labor will be replaced. Trade jobs won't be far behind, because robotics will be nipping at their heels. If software falls, everything falls. I don’t think that follows at all. Robotics is notably much, much, much harder than AI/ML. You can replace programmers without robotics. You can’t replace trades without them.
- RobRivera 1y ago
  >ignore hyp and build something interesting AND don't be afraid to start small! Making a discord or twitch chat bot, quake mod, a silly sound board of all ypur favorite Groot quotes.
- kragen 1y ago
  Nobody has any idea what AI is going to look like five years from now. Five years ago we had GPT-2; AI couldn't code at all. Five years from now AI might still break down at even a small bit of complexity, or it might be installing air conditioners, or it might be colonizing Mercury and putting humans in zoos. Anyone who tells you they know what the future looks like five years from now is lying.
  - tmn 1y ago
    There’s a significant difference between predicting what it will specifically look like, and predicting sets of possibilities it won’t look like
    - kragen 1y ago
      No, there isn't. When speaking of logically consistent possibilities, the two problems are precisely isomorphic under Boolean negation.
      - bryanrasmussen 1y ago
        good point, someone recently said > Five years from now AI might still break down at even a small bit of complexity, or it might be installing air conditioners, or it might be colonizing Mercury and putting humans in zoos. do all these seem logically consistent possibilities to you?
        kragen 1y ago
        Yes, obviously. You presumably don't know what "consistent" means in logic, and your untutored intuition is misleading you into guessing that possibilities like those could conceivably be inconsistent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistency
        bryanrasmussen 1y ago
        or I just wanted to make sure that you were adamant that the list of those three possibilities were equally probable, to reiterate > AI might still break down at even a small bit of complexity, or it might be installing air conditioners, or it might be colonizing Mercury and putting humans in zoos. that each of these things, being logically consistent, have equal chances of being the case 5 years from now?
tombert 1y ago
I've been trying to convince my brother-in-law (who works at a convenience store) to consider trade school for years now, in no small part because I think a lot of the jobs you go to trade school for are safe from automation. For reasons kind of unclear to me, it seems like trade schools have been kind of stigmatized, as somehow "lesser" than university. I don't completely understand why that is; the world needs welders and AC technicians and Practical Nurses much more than we need more software engineers working at a Silicon Valley startup.
- squigz 1y ago
  > the world needs welders and AC technicians and Practical Nurses much more than we need more software engineers working at a Silicon Valley startup. The world needs software engineers too. Silicon Valley isn't the world. Not to mention, you know... it's not just programmers that come out of universities. Anyway, trades are "looked down" on like that because they're a lot of very hard, very physical work. I would certainly encourage my children to go to university if it's going to lead to a much more comfortable life.
  - tombert 1y ago
    For the record, I have a bachelors and a masters in computer science and while I didn't finish I did attend a PhD program. I'm not trying to dog on universities as a concept. That said, I think universities aren't a good fit for a lot of people. A lot of people (and I include my brother-in-law in this group) would not be happy with a desk job, and while I think he's pretty smart I don't know that he would do well having to attend four years of a university. I think trade schools are excellent for these kinds of people. I don't have children, but I would like to think that if I did I would try and help them get a career they would be happy with, and "comfortable" doesn't necessarily imply that. I prefer to have a desk job, I like writing software, it's why I spend too much time on HN, but I think a lot of people would benefit from a trade school, and I don't think they should be stigmatized.
    - antonymoose 1y ago
      I would second this largely, I’m the son of a plumber / handyman / GC. I’ve spent my childhood on service calls and job sites since the age of 5, spent my teenage summers schlepping tools and driving lightning rods, you name it, I’ve done it. I wouldn’t trade my near 20 year software career for the trades, I don’t think. However, the biggest thing I think the HN crowd might appreciate that they have and we lack is an easy path to freedom through self employment - if you want self-employment as a programmer you need the fortune of a novel idea, improvement, or something new in some sense. You might need to also chase the VC dragon. You want to start a plumbing business? Work hard 5-10 years, get out on your own with a van and tools and you have a turn key business idea. Provide good service at a proper rate. End of story.
Animats 1y ago
The actual report is four links down and paywalled.[1] Their source for future estimation is apparently Google Trends tallies of searches for trade schools. Actual growth over the last few years is 3.2% per year, from 2019 to 2024. US population growth is about 0.5% per year, so deduct that. Always look for the actuals. [1] https://validatedinsightstradeschools2.carrd.co/ https://validatedinsightstradeschools2.carrd.co/
bluedino 1y ago
Where are they going to work? We haven't starting building all the new manufacturing plants etc that we need. It takes forever to get into even an apprenticeship at the existing places. Sure, you have lots of people retiring out but as far as new jobs go?
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Data Centers are growing like weeds. They need lots of HVAC installers, plumbers, and electricians
- Neywiny 1y ago
  Not sure if it counts as a trade but I've heard ATC operators are in high demand. There are just some jobs that even now and over the past years are severely understaffed. So, I'm not sure how many new jobs are needed vs backfilling existing vacancies.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
analog31 1y ago
Is this just a symptom of the economic cycle? I have two friends who are both retired from careers teaching at the regional community college. They've told me that the number and quality of students go up when the job market is weak. When jobs are plentiful, people don't bother with trade school.
BenFranklin100 1y ago
This is good news for society. Too many young men have fallen behind in the last ten years and young women now outpace them in college. It’s great young women are doing well, but if young men don’t have a parallel career path, they may become disheartened about their future, and we end up with a large cohort of disenchanted young men and political instability. The trades can provide an alternative non-college career path for these young men.
- mna_ 1y ago
  But do highly educated women want to date and marry plumbers, mechanics, bricklayers, plasterers, etc? Women almost always date upwards.
  - BenFranklin100 1y ago
    That is an issue, but I think attitudes are changing. On the other hand, they want to date unemployed or underemployed men in menial service jobs even less, so there’s that.
AngryData 1y ago
That's neat but I don't think this is really a positive thing, it just shows people are desperate. Many people have left and are still leaving the trades because for many positions the pay is subpar, the work has many health hazards and cuts 10-20 years off your lifespan and quality of living, the hours are long, and the industry is boom and bust constantly and unstable. I see people hem and haw about trades and how "great" they are all the time, but as someone who has worked in trades for the last 15 years, not nearly as many people can handle it or like it as they think. Many people heard about their cousin or friend who broke $100K doing trade work, but what they fail to mention is they did that by working 90 hours a week every week all year to do it. They don't mention how they kept working through injury and now they will feel it the rest of their life. And they don't mention or haven't been working long enough to feel the bust between the booms when they are either taking jobs that only earn $5 an hour, or just don't have enough work for full hours. Yes we need trade workers, but there has never been a lack of trade workers, only a lack of pay. I know far more people that have left trades than have joined. Many liked the physical work, but couldn't justify the health costs on top of the poor or unstable pay.
- breakyerself 1y ago
  100%. I feel like the Mike Rowe style agitation to divert people from college into the trades is, to some extent, an effort to increase competition for these jobs to depress wages. If you work in the trades the last thing you should want is an army of people trying to join your profession.
- xyzzy123 1y ago
  Also culturally a lot of people look down on people who work with their hands. The median outcome for someone baseline reliable & skilled but doesn't have the inclination to run a business is OK but usually not great.
- Der_Einzige 1y ago
  I believe if you’re in a trade and not making minimum of 100K you’re doing it wrong. Nearly every skilled trade costs at least 100$ an hour for their labor, often far more. Yes even in West Virginia or Mississippi. Stop getting scammed by working for someone else and work for yourself. Trades are so lucky too in that it’s hard for normies to evaluate the quality of their work - so you can make tons of money while still being really shitty at it.
readthenotes1 1y ago
The happiest workers I've met are the people fixing gas leaks for the gas company. No one ever rushes them, plenty of work, and not stuck in a cubicle. Every student college bound is a crime. Not everyone needs to forget calculus...

65 points by m-hodges 1y ago

For junior devs wondering if they picked the right path, remember that the world still needs software, ai still breaks down at even a small bit of complexity, and the first ones to abandon this career will be those who only did it for money anyways and they’ll do the same once the trades have a rough year (as they always do). In the meantime keep learning and practicing cs fundamentals, ignore hype and build something interesting.

echelon 1y ago
AI coding isn't eating the industry, offshoring is. Inflation, end of ZIRP, and IRS section 174 kicked this off back in 2022 before AI coding was even a thing. Junior devs won't lose jobs to AI. They'll lose jobs to the global market. American software developers have lost the stranglehold on the job market.
- linotype 1y ago
  Section 174 has been restored, thankfully. We’ll see if the damage is done.
  - echelon 1y ago
    Fingers crossed. The interest rate is still a tremendously bad problem. If it had been ZIRP and low interest, companies would have just borrowed to cover the amortization that 174 introduced. But unfortunately money doesn't grow on trees anymore.
cyanydeez 1y ago
Also, morals and ethics are optional!
tombert 1y ago
I think the concern isn't so much about the current state of AI replacing software engineers, but more "what if it keeps getting better at this same rate?" I don't really agree with the reasoning [1], and I don't think we can expect this same rate of progress indefinitely, but I do understand the concern. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- echelon 1y ago
  If software developers wind up replaced by AI, I think it's safe to say every industry's labor will be replaced. Trade jobs won't be far behind, because robotics will be nipping at their heels. If software falls, everything falls. But as we've seen, these models can't do the job themselves. They're best thought of as an exoskeleton that requires a pilot. They make mistakes, and those mistakes multiply into a mess if a human isn't around. They don't get the big picture, and it's not clear they ever will with the current models and techniques. The only field that has truly been disrupted is graphics design and art. The image and video models are sublime and truly deliver 10,000x speed, cost, and talent reductions. This is probably for three reasons: 1. There's so much straightforward training data 2. The laws of optics and structure seem correspondingly easier than the rules governing intelligence. Simple animals evolved vision hundreds of millions of years ago, and we have all the math and algorithmic implementations already. Not so, for intelligence. 3. Mistakes don't multiply. You can brush up the canvas easily and deliver the job as a smaller work than, say, a 100k LOC program with failure modes.
  - tombert 1y ago
    I think this is making an assumption that the number of potential jobs is fixed. I don't agree with that assumption. I think as people learn how to use these tools then more industries pop up to use those tools. ETA: You updated your post and I think I agree with most of what you said after you updated.
  - bc569a80a344f9c 1y ago
    > If software developers wind up replaced by AI, I think it's safe to say every industry's labor will be replaced. Trade jobs won't be far behind, because robotics will be nipping at their heels. If software falls, everything falls. I don’t think that follows at all. Robotics is notably much, much, much harder than AI/ML. You can replace programmers without robotics. You can’t replace trades without them.
RobRivera 1y ago
>ignore hyp and build something interesting AND don't be afraid to start small! Making a discord or twitch chat bot, quake mod, a silly sound board of all ypur favorite Groot quotes.
kragen 1y ago
Nobody has any idea what AI is going to look like five years from now. Five years ago we had GPT-2; AI couldn't code at all. Five years from now AI might still break down at even a small bit of complexity, or it might be installing air conditioners, or it might be colonizing Mercury and putting humans in zoos. Anyone who tells you they know what the future looks like five years from now is lying.
- tmn 1y ago
  There’s a significant difference between predicting what it will specifically look like, and predicting sets of possibilities it won’t look like
  - kragen 1y ago
    No, there isn't. When speaking of logically consistent possibilities, the two problems are precisely isomorphic under Boolean negation.
    - bryanrasmussen 1y ago
      good point, someone recently said > Five years from now AI might still break down at even a small bit of complexity, or it might be installing air conditioners, or it might be colonizing Mercury and putting humans in zoos. do all these seem logically consistent possibilities to you?
      - kragen 1y ago
        Yes, obviously. You presumably don't know what "consistent" means in logic, and your untutored intuition is misleading you into guessing that possibilities like those could conceivably be inconsistent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistency
        bryanrasmussen 1y ago
        or I just wanted to make sure that you were adamant that the list of those three possibilities were equally probable, to reiterate > AI might still break down at even a small bit of complexity, or it might be installing air conditioners, or it might be colonizing Mercury and putting humans in zoos. that each of these things, being logically consistent, have equal chances of being the case 5 years from now?

tombert 1y ago

I've been trying to convince my brother-in-law (who works at a convenience store) to consider trade school for years now, in no small part because I think a lot of the jobs you go to trade school for are safe from automation. For reasons kind of unclear to me, it seems like trade schools have been kind of stigmatized, as somehow "lesser" than university. I don't completely understand why that is; the world needs welders and AC technicians and Practical Nurses much more than we need more software engineers working at a Silicon Valley startup.

squigz 1y ago
> the world needs welders and AC technicians and Practical Nurses much more than we need more software engineers working at a Silicon Valley startup. The world needs software engineers too. Silicon Valley isn't the world. Not to mention, you know... it's not just programmers that come out of universities. Anyway, trades are "looked down" on like that because they're a lot of very hard, very physical work. I would certainly encourage my children to go to university if it's going to lead to a much more comfortable life.
- tombert 1y ago
  For the record, I have a bachelors and a masters in computer science and while I didn't finish I did attend a PhD program. I'm not trying to dog on universities as a concept. That said, I think universities aren't a good fit for a lot of people. A lot of people (and I include my brother-in-law in this group) would not be happy with a desk job, and while I think he's pretty smart I don't know that he would do well having to attend four years of a university. I think trade schools are excellent for these kinds of people. I don't have children, but I would like to think that if I did I would try and help them get a career they would be happy with, and "comfortable" doesn't necessarily imply that. I prefer to have a desk job, I like writing software, it's why I spend too much time on HN, but I think a lot of people would benefit from a trade school, and I don't think they should be stigmatized.
  - antonymoose 1y ago
    I would second this largely, I’m the son of a plumber / handyman / GC. I’ve spent my childhood on service calls and job sites since the age of 5, spent my teenage summers schlepping tools and driving lightning rods, you name it, I’ve done it. I wouldn’t trade my near 20 year software career for the trades, I don’t think. However, the biggest thing I think the HN crowd might appreciate that they have and we lack is an easy path to freedom through self employment - if you want self-employment as a programmer you need the fortune of a novel idea, improvement, or something new in some sense. You might need to also chase the VC dragon. You want to start a plumbing business? Work hard 5-10 years, get out on your own with a van and tools and you have a turn key business idea. Provide good service at a proper rate. End of story.

Animats 1y ago

The actual report is four links down and paywalled.[1] Their source for future estimation is apparently Google Trends tallies of searches for trade schools. Actual growth over the last few years is 3.2% per year, from 2019 to 2024. US population growth is about 0.5% per year, so deduct that. Always look for the actuals. [1] https://validatedinsightstradeschools2.carrd.co/ https://validatedinsightstradeschools2.carrd.co/

bluedino 1y ago

Where are they going to work? We haven't starting building all the new manufacturing plants etc that we need. It takes forever to get into even an apprenticeship at the existing places. Sure, you have lots of people retiring out but as far as new jobs go?

SoftTalker 1y ago
Data Centers are growing like weeds. They need lots of HVAC installers, plumbers, and electricians
Neywiny 1y ago
Not sure if it counts as a trade but I've heard ATC operators are in high demand. There are just some jobs that even now and over the past years are severely understaffed. So, I'm not sure how many new jobs are needed vs backfilling existing vacancies.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

analog31 1y ago

Is this just a symptom of the economic cycle? I have two friends who are both retired from careers teaching at the regional community college. They've told me that the number and quality of students go up when the job market is weak. When jobs are plentiful, people don't bother with trade school.

BenFranklin100 1y ago

This is good news for society. Too many young men have fallen behind in the last ten years and young women now outpace them in college. It’s great young women are doing well, but if young men don’t have a parallel career path, they may become disheartened about their future, and we end up with a large cohort of disenchanted young men and political instability. The trades can provide an alternative non-college career path for these young men.

mna_ 1y ago
But do highly educated women want to date and marry plumbers, mechanics, bricklayers, plasterers, etc? Women almost always date upwards.
- BenFranklin100 1y ago
  That is an issue, but I think attitudes are changing. On the other hand, they want to date unemployed or underemployed men in menial service jobs even less, so there’s that.

AngryData 1y ago

That's neat but I don't think this is really a positive thing, it just shows people are desperate. Many people have left and are still leaving the trades because for many positions the pay is subpar, the work has many health hazards and cuts 10-20 years off your lifespan and quality of living, the hours are long, and the industry is boom and bust constantly and unstable. I see people hem and haw about trades and how "great" they are all the time, but as someone who has worked in trades for the last 15 years, not nearly as many people can handle it or like it as they think. Many people heard about their cousin or friend who broke $100K doing trade work, but what they fail to mention is they did that by working 90 hours a week every week all year to do it. They don't mention how they kept working through injury and now they will feel it the rest of their life. And they don't mention or haven't been working long enough to feel the bust between the booms when they are either taking jobs that only earn $5 an hour, or just don't have enough work for full hours. Yes we need trade workers, but there has never been a lack of trade workers, only a lack of pay. I know far more people that have left trades than have joined. Many liked the physical work, but couldn't justify the health costs on top of the poor or unstable pay.

breakyerself 1y ago
100%. I feel like the Mike Rowe style agitation to divert people from college into the trades is, to some extent, an effort to increase competition for these jobs to depress wages. If you work in the trades the last thing you should want is an army of people trying to join your profession.
xyzzy123 1y ago
Also culturally a lot of people look down on people who work with their hands. The median outcome for someone baseline reliable & skilled but doesn't have the inclination to run a business is OK but usually not great.
Der_Einzige 1y ago
I believe if you’re in a trade and not making minimum of 100K you’re doing it wrong. Nearly every skilled trade costs at least 100$ an hour for their labor, often far more. Yes even in West Virginia or Mississippi. Stop getting scammed by working for someone else and work for yourself. Trades are so lucky too in that it’s hard for normies to evaluate the quality of their work - so you can make tons of money while still being really shitty at it.

readthenotes1 1y ago

The happiest workers I've met are the people fixing gas leaks for the gas company. No one ever rushes them, plenty of work, and not stuck in a cubicle. Every student college bound is a crime. Not everyone needs to forget calculus...