I know sheet metal guys and they make a lot more than that for decorative sheet metal. If that is hanging house gutters and ducting for HVAC that might be competitive, I don’t know. But my buddy Mike makes six figures. My other neighbor Jose does too.
yeah, that kind of thing really grinds my gears. In a discussion on another board about a year ago about the difficulty of finding work, somebody who was the typical “jobs are always out there” posted about how there were about a dozen openings for Java programmers in the NY area. Which is great and all, but if I’m an unemployed mechanical engineer, what good is that?
With an attitude like that, I would not be surprised if that person stayed unemployed. There are no permanent commitments. If you (the generic you) would rather sit at home and mope about that, you’re not getting any sympathy from me. Heaven forbid you think about getting a skill that would allow you to be self-employed!
Pffft. There are people who would kill to make $80k, with overtime, and with benefits. You can go on their web site and see what type of metal work this is. It’s industrial, not decorative.
Whether this company isn’t trying hard enough is debatable. The idea that these jobs aren’t worth it, in this economy, is laughable.
This happened to my sister’s husband - he does tool-and-die work, and after he was laid off, it took a seriously long time for him to find another position. I think it ended up being a couple years for him to find something, and he was looking in the middle south to southeastern corner of the state of Wisconsin (Madison area to Milwaukee area, and south to the state line, for those familiar). He isn’t exactly raking in the big bucks, either.
There are but then the company will complain that they didn’t get guys or women who can do the work they want. If the people they want can make more money elsewhere then boo-hoo for the company.
OK, I just wandered over to Marlin Steel Wire Products to look at the requirements.
Has that moron actually tried calling someone like, oh say the Navy to let them know that they have 3 spots for departing MM/A gangers? mrAru just read the requirements over my shoulder and pointed out that he spent much of the past 20 years doing most of his wish list.
I have been saying for years that we need to do the German thing and test at about 6 or 7th grade and send off the ones that fall under a certain grade to trade school, and those above it to university oriented school. I loved working in the trades, I made more money than the girls stuck in the pink collar ghetto, dressed in scruffy t-shirt and jeans and [steel toed] sneakers and got as much overtime as I wanted. When my ex and I worked for Henze-Movats we made $16 an hour and $65 a day [each] per diem working nuke plant refits.
Machinist with 15 years experience here. I was tied for the top ACT score in my high school class (but far from the top GPA:o), went in the Army as a Russian linguist, started college but decided it wasn’t for me. Machining fits me because I love challenges, making things from scratch and would rather deal with things than people. I give my background because many people seem to think a machinist is one step above ditch digger. That could not be farther from the truth, the work is challenging and the vast majority of machinists I have known are very smart guys. I do draw a line between machinists and semi-skilled operators/button pushers that are called machinists because of job title inflation. My definition of a machinist is someone who when handed a print can make the part without any help.
It is a combination of all the things mentioned. A big one is that few companies are willing to train anyone anymore for short sighted economic reasons. Formal apprenticeships are very rare in the US. The bar for aptitude and the skills needed continually raises as equipment and products get more sophisticated. Pay has stagnated. American manufacturing has shrunk in numbers employed but not in value of the goods produced. Individuals are steered away from blue-collar jobs and are not willing to put in the time learning the trade and working their way up the ladder. Now days for a machinist, a vo-tech certificate to associates degree plus 3-5 years training will get someone to journeyman status but you never really stop learning. It takes mechanical ability, computer skills and problem solving skills.
When I see these stories, I have to assume these companies don’t pay well and/or don’t train people. I do appreciate that the media is starting to pay attention to the fact that these are goods jobs and manufacturing is important. Yes it will never employ as many people but it will always be an important part of any economy much like agriculture.
Another similarity to agriculture is that many people don’t understand where the products they use come from or how they are made. I can’t think of any object where a machinist isn’t involved either directly making it or making the tools or machinery that makes it. For example, take the computer you are reading this on. All the plastic parts were molded in molds built by a moldmaker. Diemakers made the dies that made the sheet metal parts inside and the extrusion dies that make the wires and cables. Machinists make the machinery and automation that make and assemble the electronics.
For this reason, a true skilled tradesman will always be needed somewhere. Some of their skills may be company or industry specific but the basic skills are universal.
What kind of work do you do that being on time isn’t required?
But do those people have the requisite skills? And can those with the skills earn more elsewhere? The question is not whether that’s good pay for a number of folks, the question is whether it’s good pay for that type of job.
I missed the edit window. A laid off tradesman may have to retrain/relocate. As mentioned above, Wisconsin/Michigan is a bad area to be a machinist. The aerospace & oilfield industries are hiring right now.
If they can’t find anyone in the US then why don’t they hire overseas?
That’s what I was thinking.
“You can be late all you want, and you can text/chat your girlfriend all you want. You just can’t do it in my department. I’ve got pipe to thread, and I intend to do it. Come with me, learn what I know, and make something of yourself. Or go be late somewhere else, and text how you lost your job. Last call, kid.”
I perhaps exaggerated my opposition to punctuality, but I would not want to work in an environment where I was expected to be at my desk/workplace from exactly 9:00 to 5:00. I do research. I am expected to get my work done by deadline. (Or, not too long afterwards, as the case may be.) I am expected to be in the office most days, but I work at home sometimes. And I’m expected to be available during the business day, by phone or email. I think it would be really difficult to balance work and family if you can’t come in late on Tuesday because Susie needs to go to the orthodontist in the morning, or work from home on Thursday afternoon while the cable guy is there. Maybe I’m spoiled, but that’s definitely what I expect out of a work environment.
Yes, BetsQ, you are spoiled. And this is coming from someone who worked in research, I know what it’s like. The requirements of research are different from those of most jobs.
In one of those jobs, we had problems with HR because they refused to understand that “8:00-5:00, with a 1h break for lunch” does not mesh at all with “research in organic synthesis”; if I’d followed their instructions I wouldn’t have been able to do my job, as the synthesis I optimized started having 5 steps (none of them under 5 hours) and ended up having 3 (6+4+6).
Let me turn the tables on you for a minute: if your teachers had started classes “between 8:50 and 9:10” rather than “at 9:00”, would you have liked it? In the last college I attended, that kind of undependability would have made it impossible for us to attend all classes in a timely fashion, as each lesson took place in a different building and we often had only 10’ between any two consecutive ones. In most jobs, punctuality is absolutely required; in too many, “flexible hours” means “your hours stretch but they never spring back” (<-- definition courtesy of my brother, who’s suffered too many of those).
Well, the Pffft question is whether the particular work for these jobs is usually going in that range. And does anyone off the street have the ability to learn it quick enough? Assuming the report that the jobs are available for a certain amount, we as gaggaling onlookers want to know why these seemingly high paying jobs are going unfilled. Maybe the company has a awful reputation. Maybe nobody is qualified. Maybe they are only being advertised to priests during confessions. We just don’t know enough. It’s an anecdote.
Blue collar work tends to fall into three categorys, skilled, semi-skilled and general labor. Skilled usually involves Electricians, Mechanics, Millwrights to give an example, and has a formalized apprenticeship program, that can last up to five years. This involves both practical and classroom insttruction.
Semi-skilled differs only in the length of time to go from street to work, A course in welding, might be at minimum 6 weeks, or up to a year at a vocational college. A welder might be concidered skilled, but only the iron worker would be able to claim that distinction. Speaking as someone that went through vo-tech to become a welder.
A general laborer is someone that would be working to a set plan, attach part a into slot b and have other duties that is industry dependent. Usually you can walk onto a factory floor and be trained within minutes.
The skilled tradesman will go through either mandated continuing of education, say like the electrician keeping abreast of current codes, or a machinist or tool and die person taking courses of some sort to keep abreast of cadcam software.
I cant speak to career growth, financial I would expect, but these folks tend to be more artisans and it should be more viewed as a vocation, rather than a job.
Depending on what he or she is doing , semi-skilled growth tends to be more lateral, going where the money is. What they trained on , might be seen as a core skill to fall back on, rather than a 4 generation job
The GL is on the bottom of the ladder, and will either move on or be a lifer. Wages and bennies will determine where they nest, while the more ambitious will have already moved on to the skilled, semi-skilled or low level management or entrepenuerial.
Um, thats fine I guess. But you may end up handicapping your kids future. My dad’s generation of work and mine are light years apart and have their own ideology. The economy that your kids work in, will not be the same as your own and your just projecting your workplace bias to them.
So have them start at McDonalds, if they are not an assistant manager within six months, they are not going to be a manager anywhere.
Declan
Reminds me of a phone conversation I once had with one of my managing directors:
MD: Is Amy in the (NYC) office?
Me: I don’t know, I’m working from home.
MD: Why are you working from home?
Me: Why do you care? You’re in London.
Yes, you are spoiled. Yes, the trend nowadays for certain white collar jobs seems to be a move towards the work from home model. However, most jobs do require you be in the office, on time, during core business hours.
And the flip side of that is if you are able to work from home, the company often expects you to be available 24 7.
As for the OP, yes, I can see how even during high unemployment, it can be difficult to staff specific high skill roles. My company spent months trying to hire database programmers. Heck, we’ve had to hire an office manager (the girl who sends expenses to HQ, orders pencils and coffee and answers phones) twice over the past year.
Part of it is the way my company is organized and run, but I think it’s indicative of the economy as a whole. I work for a small start up that was founded and populated mostly by management consultants and mid-level corporate managers. IOW highly educated people who don’t really know how to “do” anything except pontificate and make Powerpoint decks. “Doing” stuff is beneath them. It’s technical work for technical people. “Staff” who can be assigned vague requirements to build into actual working code. Oh sure, we do have highly technical people. But they are either sequestered in remote development centers or they are very senior “visionaries” and “gurus” who are above the nusance of day to day client work.
But the point is that most people with half a brain aren’t training to be machinists or other skilled laborers. Everyone wants to go to college so they can get some vague “job” in corporate America possibly managing people or better yet, consulting.
Lots of knowledge worker/IT jobs are flexible, mostly because they tend to be salary exempt positions, thus most of us work way more than 40 hours but never get paid overtime, if we are lucky we have a nice boss that lets us take comp time but that is not a legal requirement.
In reality I think the issue is that California is a big tech hub, they require that knowledge workers “work independently and without close supervision” in order to qualify, fixed hours make that a hard bar to match.
The money they save in overtime and gain in employee “good will” outweigh any clock punching desires they may have.
It’s not “sit around and mope”, it’s “prefer to train in a skill with a more diverse set of applications”.
I don’t read that as $80K + overtime, I think it means “Less than $80K, but there is the opportunity to make up to $80K, if you work overtime.” Which, for the record, is a promise I am always a little suspicious about–it’s not contractual, and I always assume employers are going to spin it.
But in a free market, something is worth what it sells for. If no one wants to do a job at those wages, they must be worth more.
Each to their own - but that sounds like paradise to me :D.
But I value job security over a lot of things ( also I hate the whole process of interviewing ). I have a friend who is currently a VP in an advertising firm and she literally changes jobs every 2-4 years. Now THAT is horrific.
Not everyone is suited temperamentally for management. I’m certainly not and it isfoolish to force it if you aren’t. We’ve ALL seen bad managers and the disasters they can cause.
And as far as pigeonholing, robots might replace spot welders, but for instance they’re never going to replace electricians, plumbers, instrumentation techs or stationary engineers. At least not in our lifetime ;). And those last two actually have very broadly applicable skills that could be suited from anything from a hospital to an aquarium to a refinery. I had friends that were curators and S. E.s at a nationally known aquarium and believe me the stationary engineers that maintained the place made maybe 3x the money of the academic types.