# If not college, then what? Trade jobs are even worse? (young adult problems in the US for jobs) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 5, 2025, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532 "2025-07-05T11:19:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/61 "2025-07-05T18:57:31Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > The union pays for 2-4 years of training with salary? > > Where does that come from? I assume other member’s dues but it seems expensive and the union needs a strike fund and other stuff. I think you misunderstood - it’s an apprentice program which means the apprentices are working and the construction company is paying. But it’s not like I get a job at Joes’s garage and why would Joe want to train me as a mechanic so I can leave and go somewhere else. I get accepted into the union’s apprentice program and when the construction company calls the union and says says they want X apprentices, Y journeymen and Z foremen, the union sends that number of people to the job. But there absolutely are way more people interested than openings - and of course, if a relative is already a union member, it helps. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/62 "2025-07-05T19:03:15Z")
In Canada, about 5% of the construction workforce is female. In nursing, about 5% is male. This has been true for decades despite years of programs to shift the gender balance. I have no point to make about why this may be the case. Of course, one way to look after people who may not be suited for “good” jobs and to create jobs that “Americans” will do is to pay those lousy jobs more. At one time, being a garbage collector was considered a bad job. When those jobs were unionized and paid good wages, had job security, pensions, and medical plans, they magically became good jobs that people sought. Ditto postal work and meatcutters. As those unions and jobs were attacked, starting in the 1970s, they became bad jobs again. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/63 "2025-07-05T19:04:49Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > The union pays for 2-4 years of training with salary? Some apprenticeships (many, maybe most that aren’t technical schools) are on-the-job types. The employer pays, but at a lesser rate that a full journeyman. My employer for example employs a wide variety of trades folks. My particular niche is specialized and senior - no apprenticeship program currently exists, rather it peels off already trained and certified people from certain related trades. However other positions DO have trainee slots, because finding qualified journeymen is difficult. So it is easier for them to have in-house apprenticeship programs. Sometimes with an up-or-out requirement (i.e. you get yourself trained up and certified within three years or you’re fired). So you get hired on at maybe 70% of the pay rate of a journeyman and after a few years become one. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/64 "2025-07-05T19:15:28Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > It may just be me but it seems you are tip-toeing around the edge of “education” to mean only university. It’s just you, or else it’s my poor writing. I don’t mean that at all. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/65 "2025-07-06T00:28:46Z")
I read in today’s Times that many manufacturers cannot find employees. I think they meant already trained employees. And that brings up the point about companies training employees only to see them poached by other companies not willing to train new hires. When my son started working for Microsoft in 1990, they solved that problem by making part of their remuneration in the form of options that didn’t vest for 18 months. And by the time, they vested you would have received more options. Rinse and repeat. Basically they were deferring part of your salary for 18 months. If some year you were not awarded options, that was the time to look for another job. I realize most employers cannot issue options, but perhaps if there were some legal way to defer salary, more empoyers would be willing to hire untrained people and train them. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/66 "2025-07-06T00:33:03Z")
> [@Mops](#): > > apprenticeship you do your journeyman piece Thank you for this. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/67 "2025-07-06T00:58:28Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > the airlines are falling over themselves to hire any/every woman they can find 🙂 I knew a women who walked into a job in airframe maintenance. Although that had less to do with her birth gender, and more to do with her small size and light frame 🙂 She worked inside airplane wings for a while. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/68 "2025-07-06T01:25:11Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > I believe women are certainly capable (intellectually speaking) of being mechanics, plumbers, electricians, etc. But I think your latter comment is true… for whatever reason, many women simply don’t want to those jobs. There are a lot of reasons. One reason is that they’ve faced hostility in those jobs. Another is that simply nobody ever told them about them. Both of those reasons, at least, can be fixed. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I thought learning a trade implied an education. Might be in a school or on the job or a combination of both. It is still an education. Right, but education can also be a goal in itself. I’m in a job that requires a college degree, but I did not get that degree (degrees, actually) so I could do this job. I got the degrees because they came with the education, and it was the education itself that I wanted. But that’s me. I love learning. Not everyone does, though, and some people do just see education as a means to an end. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/69 "2025-07-06T01:26:26Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > I don’t think there are many jobs that will allow you to buy a house in your 20s or 30s the way people could fairly easily do 50 years ago. My father bought the family’s first house thanks to a Veterans Administration loan, thanks to his having been in World War II. My wife bought her first house - a tiny little crackerbox in a less than desirable neighborhood - because her parents essentially gave her the down payment. By the time we were married and ready to start a family in the 1980s it took both our incomes and the equity she got from her old house to qualify for a mortgage. It was never “fairly easy” to buy a house in your 20s or 30s. The big difference is that it used to be the federal government’s mission to come up with enough FHA and VA loans to get a lot of people into homes. That’s not true now. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/70 "2025-07-06T03:15:56Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > And that brings up the point about companies training employees only to see them poached by other companies not willing to train new hires. If the first company paid the newly trained employees as much as the poaching company is willing to pay, perhaps the trainee wouldn’t leave. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/71 "2025-07-06T03:27:10Z")
Okay: change “fairly easy” to “not impossible.” ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/72 "2025-07-06T09:42:00Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I realize most employers cannot issue options, but perhaps if there were some legal way to defer salary, more empoyers would be willing to hire untrained people and train them. There are similar features in the lower rungs of the airline industry. The outcome is mostly disastrous for the workers. Every new hire pilot at any airline, be it grand or small, needs to go through that company’s training on the specific airplane type, even if they just moved from flying the same type at a different company. That’s a roughly 2-month process where the employee is being paid and is producing nothing. In fact they’re rapidly consuming very expensive instructors and simulators and classrooms. A rule of thumb is the cost to the employer is $50K for an RJ and more like $75K for a big jet. What’s common in the bottom of the industry is a “training contract” where as a condition of being hired, you promise to reimburse the company for what they claim is their cost of newhire training. Unless you stay there 12 or 18 months. In which case they waive the reimbursement. What happens is that management knows they have those workers by the short hairs. And so abuse them badly in every way. So of course they leave as soon as their contract term is up. Management thinks this proves the contract is a good idea to prevent poaching. In fact their slave-driver behavior is running off their own workers; the contract just puts a date certain on it. There’s not much of a worker-friendly scheme that can’t be turned against the workers by stupid and greedy shortsighted management. ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/73 "2025-07-06T13:32:21Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#): > > Employers can hire very skilled workers from other countries and pay them much less than they pay “American” tradespeople. Technically illegal in Switzerland, if the workers are in Switzerland. So companies move the jobs outside Switzerland Reality is that there will be some salary disparity. > [@needscoffee](#): > > If the first company paid the newly trained employees as much as the poaching company is willing to pay, perhaps the trainee wouldn’t leave. This. Sometimes it doesn’t matter that company A has better working conditions. If company B has higher salaries, there’s a lot people that will choose company B. ---
**Author:** ![We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/We_re_wolves_not_werewolves)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/74 "2025-07-06T14:05:22Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I realize most employers cannot issue options, but perhaps if there were some legal way to defer salary, more empoyers would be willing to hire untrained people and train them. I mean a pension kind of works in the same way. It may not vest for a couple years, and then increases as a function of the time employed. It provides incentive for employees to stay longer at an employer. And for that matter, delayed vesting of 401k’s and such also attempt to keep people at the same job. And then there are other, more insidious, ways companies try to keep employees from moving to competitors, such as non-compete agreements, and NDA’s, in which they will threaten legal action if you try to move to another job in the same industry. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/75 "2025-07-06T14:59:40Z")
> [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](#): > > I mean a pension kind of works in the same way. It may not vest for a couple years, and then increases as a function of the time employed. It provides incentive for employees to stay longer at an employer. It absolutely does. I could have earned more if I had changed jobs - but the pension and other benefits were so good that in 28 years there, the only people I know who resigned either did so because they were moving out of state or because the alternative was to be arrested. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/76 "2025-07-06T15:03:49Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > because the alternative was to be arrested Damn. That was one tough employer. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/77 "2025-07-06T15:15:07Z")
I think you’re joking but just in case - not really. They were lucky to be given the alternative of resigning in lieu of arrest. They probably shouldn’t have been. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/78 "2025-07-06T15:16:49Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > They were lucky to be given the alternative of resigning in lieu of arrest. It was a semi-joke, but now I’m genuinely curious. Can you share what line of work you were in? ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/79 "2025-07-06T15:25:27Z")
I worked for a law enforcement agency - and the people I’m talking about committed such crimes as perjury (which had they been successful would have resulted in a wrongful incarceration) and having sexual contact with someone who wasn’t legally able to consent ( not children, more like an inmate can’t legally consent to sex with a prison employee) ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532/80 "2025-07-06T15:29:15Z")
Thanks for the info. I agree that those folks SHOULD have been arrested, rather than being allowed to resign. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-college-then-what-trade-jobs-are-even-worse-young-adult-problems-in-the-us-for-jobs/1020532.md?page=5)