6 ms·

Summary of article: in an uncertain job market, some young people are going into blue collar trades. Others are starting startups. Others are powering through.

Summary of article: in an uncertain job market, some young people are going into blue collar trades. Others are starting startups. Others are powering through. Journalist says some words about "AI" being the cause of all this uncertainty.

baxtr 7mo ago
Thank you. That was the comment I came looking for.
blitzar 7mo ago
Your role writing these summaries could be outsourced to Ai if you don't improve your productivity.
- fancyswimtime 7mo ago
  The AI has evaluated your performance as unsatisfactory; no food stamps this week.
- ramon156 7mo ago
  What does productivity mean in this context? AI would just give you the same crap the article used. I like a good TL;DR.
edwcross 7mo ago
Not sure how it works in the US, but in some parts of Europe, blue collar trades are currently much better, for several reasons: - Price of housing and associated maintenance keeps rising, and so do small jobs like fixing plumbing, gardening, etc; - You can easily avoid paying VAT if you know how to, so that's a 20% increase, or even more, if you can benefit from social services (e.g. since you don't earn a lot, you pay less for several services); - Doing the fixes yourself saves lots of money; - Avoids several burn out and mental health issues related to stress such as academia, bullshit jobs, etc; - No need to spend years in school, so you can save money earlier and invest it. One disadvantage is that the barrier to entry is somewhat low; but the PhD students also have to compete with cheap international labor, so in the end, someone 25 years old that just left grad school is happy to earn, say, 2000€, while someone in the trades can easily make 200€/day with just one appointment. So, if you're physically fit for blue collar work, there are currently few reasons not do it.
- funki 7mo ago
  "You can easily avoid paying VAT if you know how to" Interesting. Would you care to enlighten us on a legal way to do this ?
  - stdbrouw 7mo ago
    You don't have to pay VAT on things you fix for yourself, because you don't pay yourself at all. This is in fact a kind of (legal) tax avoidance, but not (illegal) tax evasion. Given the cost of housing, being able to build your own house or even just doing small fixes here and there, leads to a big increase in perceived income. The tradies I know can afford whatever kind of car they want, whatever kind of holiday experience, and they live in a nice home. Mind you, they typically work 50h+ a week so there's that. Of course, the parent may also have been referring to getting clients to pay in cash and not putting anything on the books, at the expense of getting barely any pension in the end, but that's not how I read it. This is getting somewhat less common because people are more likely than 20 years ago to get a loan from a bank to pay for renovation work, and the bank will want to see invoices.
    - falcor84 7mo ago
      > You don't have to pay VAT on things you fix for yourself, because you don't pay yourself at all. Just to be clear, if you're a VAT-registered tradie doing a job for yourself, you are obligated to pay VAT for the materials. Diverting vat-reclaimed materials for self-supply is tax evasion (which can be identified by auditing invoices). So legally speaking, the only money saved is the VAT on your own work hours. Slightly ironically, self-supply is much easier and almost impossible to identify when devs use work-paid subscription services (e.g. Claude Max) on personal side hustles.
      - lb1lf 7mo ago
        -Besides, in some jurisdictions, the taxman thought of that. If a Norwegian tradesman works on his own home, he's supposed to pay VAT on the value of the work he's done - not only on the materials used. I suspect such work is being under-reported, though.
newsoftheday 7mo ago
How will people be able to afford to pay for blue collar labor though, when AI will potentially have decimated all white collar and many blue collar jobs; that's what I worry about. For example, if someone decides to stop being a software engineer and become an automobile mechanic, but few people can afford an automobile; they demand for their services will also greatly diminish.
- nilamo 7mo ago
  But cars will be 50% of their current cost, once all those useless managers and c-suite folks are replaced by ai. Right? Right??
- msabalau 7mo ago
  Either AI causes a collapse in aggerate demand, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, you still have your blue collar career. If it it does, you still have your skills at things that are hard to automate, and don't seem to be any worse of than anyone else, even if collectively, we are all worse off. At an individual level, this still seems worth pursuing. You don't get to control your macro environment. Of course, one could still use the political and persuasive tools you have towards the aim of ensuring the benefits of AI are broadly shared. It's reasonable to fear that is hard and uncertain work, but you don't get do decide if you live in hard and uncertain times or not.
- Empact 7mo ago
  Affordability is a combination of individual productivity and the economy’s productivity. A substantial increase in the economy’s productivity through AI and robotics should result in greater overall production, which should tend to result in abundance, and thus a lower cost of living, which can even overwhelm a decline in your individual productivity.
pstuart 7mo ago
I recently had a chat with a young person who'd recently graduated with a degree in marketing, found the work entailed unsatisfying, and left that to become an apprentice electrician. He said that with the tariffs situation work had severely dried up and jobs were tight. This was in the PDX metro area. It makes one wonder what is really safe...

baxtr 7mo ago

Thank you. That was the comment I came looking for.

blitzar 7mo ago

Your role writing these summaries could be outsourced to Ai if you don't improve your productivity.

fancyswimtime 7mo ago
The AI has evaluated your performance as unsatisfactory; no food stamps this week.
ramon156 7mo ago
What does productivity mean in this context? AI would just give you the same crap the article used. I like a good TL;DR.

edwcross 7mo ago

Not sure how it works in the US, but in some parts of Europe, blue collar trades are currently much better, for several reasons: - Price of housing and associated maintenance keeps rising, and so do small jobs like fixing plumbing, gardening, etc; - You can easily avoid paying VAT if you know how to, so that's a 20% increase, or even more, if you can benefit from social services (e.g. since you don't earn a lot, you pay less for several services); - Doing the fixes yourself saves lots of money; - Avoids several burn out and mental health issues related to stress such as academia, bullshit jobs, etc; - No need to spend years in school, so you can save money earlier and invest it. One disadvantage is that the barrier to entry is somewhat low; but the PhD students also have to compete with cheap international labor, so in the end, someone 25 years old that just left grad school is happy to earn, say, 2000€, while someone in the trades can easily make 200€/day with just one appointment. So, if you're physically fit for blue collar work, there are currently few reasons not do it.

funki 7mo ago
"You can easily avoid paying VAT if you know how to" Interesting. Would you care to enlighten us on a legal way to do this ?
- stdbrouw 7mo ago
  You don't have to pay VAT on things you fix for yourself, because you don't pay yourself at all. This is in fact a kind of (legal) tax avoidance, but not (illegal) tax evasion. Given the cost of housing, being able to build your own house or even just doing small fixes here and there, leads to a big increase in perceived income. The tradies I know can afford whatever kind of car they want, whatever kind of holiday experience, and they live in a nice home. Mind you, they typically work 50h+ a week so there's that. Of course, the parent may also have been referring to getting clients to pay in cash and not putting anything on the books, at the expense of getting barely any pension in the end, but that's not how I read it. This is getting somewhat less common because people are more likely than 20 years ago to get a loan from a bank to pay for renovation work, and the bank will want to see invoices.
  - falcor84 7mo ago
    > You don't have to pay VAT on things you fix for yourself, because you don't pay yourself at all. Just to be clear, if you're a VAT-registered tradie doing a job for yourself, you are obligated to pay VAT for the materials. Diverting vat-reclaimed materials for self-supply is tax evasion (which can be identified by auditing invoices). So legally speaking, the only money saved is the VAT on your own work hours. Slightly ironically, self-supply is much easier and almost impossible to identify when devs use work-paid subscription services (e.g. Claude Max) on personal side hustles.
    - lb1lf 7mo ago
      -Besides, in some jurisdictions, the taxman thought of that. If a Norwegian tradesman works on his own home, he's supposed to pay VAT on the value of the work he's done - not only on the materials used. I suspect such work is being under-reported, though.

newsoftheday 7mo ago

How will people be able to afford to pay for blue collar labor though, when AI will potentially have decimated all white collar and many blue collar jobs; that's what I worry about. For example, if someone decides to stop being a software engineer and become an automobile mechanic, but few people can afford an automobile; they demand for their services will also greatly diminish.

nilamo 7mo ago
But cars will be 50% of their current cost, once all those useless managers and c-suite folks are replaced by ai. Right? Right??
msabalau 7mo ago
Either AI causes a collapse in aggerate demand, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, you still have your blue collar career. If it it does, you still have your skills at things that are hard to automate, and don't seem to be any worse of than anyone else, even if collectively, we are all worse off. At an individual level, this still seems worth pursuing. You don't get to control your macro environment. Of course, one could still use the political and persuasive tools you have towards the aim of ensuring the benefits of AI are broadly shared. It's reasonable to fear that is hard and uncertain work, but you don't get do decide if you live in hard and uncertain times or not.
Empact 7mo ago
Affordability is a combination of individual productivity and the economy’s productivity. A substantial increase in the economy’s productivity through AI and robotics should result in greater overall production, which should tend to result in abundance, and thus a lower cost of living, which can even overwhelm a decline in your individual productivity.

pstuart 7mo ago

I recently had a chat with a young person who'd recently graduated with a degree in marketing, found the work entailed unsatisfying, and left that to become an apprentice electrician. He said that with the tariffs situation work had severely dried up and jobs were tight. This was in the PDX metro area. It makes one wonder what is really safe...