A labor market conundrum: Skilled and high-paying blue-collar jobs go unfilled
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
I think a lot of current CS hopefuls coming in as freshmen are going to see a shocking market adjustment when there are tens of thousands of juniors competing for the same jobs, just as we saw with law degrees after the last recession. There are way more JDs than there are good attorney jobs, and even fewer partner positions that really bring in the money.
Market dynamics affect one's well being less when you are not shooting simply for compensation, but also job satisfaction. Of course, in our society, highly indebted students are forced to be all about the money and not about the satisfaction. This doesn't lead to successful careers. It leads to burnout, disillusionment, and ennui.
That implies that there is not some "fixed" number of CS jobs for which everyone is competing; some CS grads will start companies that will employ 5 or 10 other CS grads.
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Can confirm.
Had to leave university at the onset of the last recession (starting 2007-2008). From then until very recently I was able to make reasonable coping money, but not doing anything I really enjoyed. Sold televisions on commission, worked my way up in a warehouse (film/tv) equipment maintenance and repair to management, drove forklift, freelanced (much harder to make enough money there to cover student loans).
I'm, after nearly ten years, just getting into a pace where I'm making a little more money, and in a field I can leverage to greater effect in the future. It's still not overly satisfying, but I live better than I have.
Ennui and disillusionment are familiar modes... my most common feeling is that of boredom and worry that I'm wasting the best years of my life.
I really don't want that to happen to a new round of minds. It fosters the worst thoughts and feelings in people, especially in those who are or become emotionally vulnerable in any way. And let me say, getting by on $10 groceries a week will help to render one vulnerable real quickly.
edit: Well aware of my first world problems. This is very much in the context of North America.
As are large lottery jackpots, but Americans are playing them in record numbers. I'd like to think that most people are capable of seeing this kind of sales technique for what it is, but it seems to me that people are largely swayed by persuasion techniques and far less so by cold, rational calculation.
Completely agree, but you're pointing out a chicken and egg problem. You want 17 year olds that are about to graduate from high school to understand market forces, economics, and a whole lot of information that's just simply not being taught in most high schools. In fact, learning such things is the reason many people go to college in the first place. That's simply too much to ask, so we shouldn't be surprised when those students make the wrong choices because we as a society haven't prepared them to make the right ones. Not only are they disadvantaged by being teens (don't have fully developed brains, almost no experience, can't fully control emotions etc.), they are also disadvantaged by not having the proper learning experiences. Seems like what I'm trying to say is that the fix that's needed needs to happen much earlier and we as a society are failing spectacularly at providing it.
Other problems: if you work at the only factory in town, the factory has total power over you. You can't quit and get another job. If the factory closes, the town dies. Or goes into zombie mode - no jobs, young people leave, population ages, buildings are abandoned. Too many US towns and small cities are like that. Relocating to a one-factory town is risky. You can be trapped there, especially if you buy a house. 84 Lumber HQ is in a town with 700 people.
Companies in bigger cities tend to have less trouble recruiting. The labor pool is bigger. They can raise wages if they need more workers, which tends to push wages up in urban areas.
> Magerko, 51, is not afraid to flaunt her wealth, sending a message to her workers that they too can get rich working construction. Wearing a diamond cross necklace, a Gucci belt, and a white shirt emblazoned with the company logo, she visited a rural Pennsylvania store recently in a white Mercedes. “I want people who work for me to retire in their 50s and own their own boats,” she says.
So essentially, the best way to achieve the American Dream is to inherit a successful business from your parents.
Capitalism is sort of like a pyramid scheme - The owner(s) at the top reaping all the benefits, while everyone else is plumbing away in hope of the "American Dream".
Not for nothing, but the Forbes 400 list that year included Elizabeth Holmes because of her 50% stake in Theranos, valued at $9 billion; last year it was valued at $800 million. This is not the only example of wealth being more made-up than self-made.
God that sounds terrible anyway. Do that many people want to retire - literally have nothing greater than themselves that requires their input on a daily basis - and go sit on a boat? What a waste.
The California Lottery's current TV spot shows a youngish guy on a yacht, with a pony.
It's perhaps inspired by the old Lyle Lovett song, "If I Had a Boat", which says:
"If I had a boat
I'd sail across the ocean
and if I had a pony
I'd ride him on my boat."I do! Not necessarily a boat, though; I'd rather have a nice house in the woods, and spend a lot of time traveling the world. But you seem to think it's a "waste" if someone doesn't want to spend their whole life working. For what? So I can spend most of my waking hours in the sheer hell which is the modern open-plan office? Why TF would I want to do that if I didn't have to? The sooner I don't have to put up with open-plan offices, the better. And what are you contributing to the world while you're working anyway? You really think that working on yet another Javascript framework, or building yet another re-spin of some website is improving the world in a substantive way? Out of all the HN readership, I'd guess that less than 5% actually does anything that's lasting and useful to society.
Out of all the HN readership, I'd guess that less than 5% actually does anything that's lasting and useful to society.
I'd put it at closer to 1% - and that's the point. You have the causation backward though. If the purported goal is this mundane, hedonistic "retirement," then nobody will ever do anything lasting and useful because you can find an easy niche to fall into that lets you maximize your "leisure time."
You said before: "Do that many people want to retire - literally have nothing greater than themselves that requires their input on a daily basis"
What else would people be doing if they don't retire, than working? And working means having to deal with all the crap that goes along with working: the open-plan office, meetings, the daily stand-up, office politics, etc. Why would anyone sane want to put up with this crap if they can afford not to? I sure wouldn't.
>I'd put it at closer to 1%
Yeah, I was being charitable.
>If the purported goal is this mundane, hedonistic "retirement," then nobody will ever do anything lasting and useful because you can find an easy niche to fall into that lets you maximize your "leisure time."
Yeah, but I don't see any alternative. Sure, I'd like to spend some of my time working on something really useful to humanity, and in fact that's one reason I got into engineering. The reality has been entirely different; nothing I've worked on has been important at all, and very little has even gotten any use. Most stuff just goes nowhere, gets canceled, etc. It's not like I can just go pick exactly what I want to work on. Notice how many applications NASA gets for the astronaut program, and how few of them are accepted. And even if I could pick some great project to work on, I don't want to do it if I have to work in an open-plan office, and I don't see office environments ever becoming a place where I'd be really excited to go every day. (i.e. cubicles were better than today's open-plan offices, but still pretty miserable.)
So it's pretty simple: if I can afford to not work, I'd rather just do that than to put up with the annoyances that are unavoidable at work. If that means nobody ever does anything lasting or useful, then so be it.
If that's all it takes to deter you, then I don't have much else to offer I suppose other than those annoyances are everywhere in life.
Sure, a retired person may still have to deal with some annoyances, like the local government placing restrictions on what they can do with their property, having to pay taxes, etc., but they can sure minimize the number of annoyances they have to put up with in their daily lives a lot. They can even move somewhere else if they want, without having to worry about that new location being close to a paying job.
It's really weird how dead-set against retirement and freedom you are.
Retirement means you have taken yourself out of the power dynamic and limited your wealth potential.
... well, assuming you, like me, aren't fabulously wealthy, anyway. ;)
Because that's not freedom. That's some middling low rent outcome.
Freedom means I don't have to wait in line if I don't want to. That if a hurricane comes through and destroys my house, I can just move to another one without trouble. That if I get Liver cancer, I can buy a house in Tennessee and skip the donor wait list in California (Like Steve Jobs did). It means the local cops won't bully me and my family because I paid for all of their fancy new equipment. Etc...
Freedom is not sitting idle in some garage fiddling with some bullshit. It's about being able to act with as wide as options as possible.
The point is that we shouldn't be advocating for middling outcomes and some fake version of freedom defined by leisure. It's not about being a millionaire its about leading an impactful option filled life. You can do that without money.
There is a whole trend of bucking the idea of having a huge vision and working to make that happen. Rejecting the idea that our work shouldn't be the most important thing in our lives. Your work, is how you engage with the world. Your job sucks, ok then do something else, move, shed the restrictions keeping you from doing it.
People lock themselves into these cycles aka rat races where they are working bullshit jobs for inefficient exploitative markets. Stop, and go and make an impact. Stop with the idea that working for 20 years and then taking the rest of your life off is the best use of your talent.
Oh but they say I have a family to feed, and I have health problems etc... Guess what, they'll figure it out. Kids are tough and resilient. Move somewhere with better health care, restructure your life to minimize the impacts. There are ways to do it.
Hmm, well my bio would indicate otherwise.
After working for decades in bullshit jobs, no one cares about making the best use of their talent, they care about enjoying their life, or what little is left of it.
Yea, sad isn't it?
Retirement seems like a good deal to me. It's not an inability to do things greater than yourself, it's the freedom to choose your pursuits without economic constraints (ideally).
Owning a boat, and sailing for pleasure sounds like a lovely hobby. I don't see anything wrong with aspiring to spend time that way.
At the end of the day it's just indulgence, not actually using your potential to the fullest. Going through life simply for pleasure is the sure fire way to have no lasting impact.
If that's what you want to do, then great, but I get annoyed when mediocrity is touted as the greatest good.
Not everyone wants that. Some people have had their run "making impact" and want nothing more than to spend time with their loved ones and enjoy their hobbies. I strongly doubt they'll be on their deathbeds thinking "I regret wasting all that time spent with family and doing things I love; I ought to have made a bigger impact at work instead"
Sure, in which case they shouldn't be complaining about not having impactful work.
I strongly doubt they'll be on their deathbeds thinking "I regret wasting all that time spent with family and doing things I love; I ought to have made a bigger impact at work instead"
This is a false narrative and not mutually exclusive with doing important work. Most people die suddenly without a community surrounding them, family or otherwise. I'm dubious about the number of people who have great end of life with a loving family surrounding them.
It seems like you're noting a weakness in your original argument as you set up the dichotomy. In reference to aspiring to life on a boat in retirement, you had said:
>> At the end of the day it's just indulgence, not actually using your potential to the fullest. Going through life simply for pleasure is the sure fire way to have no lasting impact.
What's the point of working hard to make the world better, if the only thing you're working hard for is to enable more hard work?
I want my children to work hard, to challenge themselves, and to do something valuable. I also want them to have a good time, and not become worker robots.
There's a place for everything. Retirement is the place for entertaining your own hobbies and interests, even if that means working on your boat and going out on the lake.
Fully agreed:
"But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself" - Camus
Her's might be different from our American Dream; but if she's setting up her employees to do this, then both sides are #winning.
One night I was talking to an older friend of a friend, 50+, around a year ago now. We were talking about what we did for a living and what we got paid. We started off with what he did: He's a bricklayer, nothing more, and told me that they get paid per brick they lay. It's something like £4 per brick. What shocked me was an experienced bricklayer like him usually lays enough bricks to make around £400/day.
"That's almost £150,000/year!" I said, trying to not sound too envious or anything (spoiler: I failed). And this doesn't include the one-off jobs they get every weekend from rich foreigners who have extravagant houses built in the UK all the time. All in all it can amount to some very large amounts of zeros in your bank. In a few years he became a millionaire from bricklaying. I have since then talked to a few others who are in that trade and it all (anecdotally) corroborates, approximately (the older you are the more you get picked for "specialist" properties that involve very rich Chinese and Arabians apparently, which can make you ~£1,000 in one weekend).
I asked, as any sane person would, something along the lines of "why isn't everyone and his dog laying bricks?". And the reply was very intriguing. He said essentially that younger people these days (my age) don't want to lay bricks every day now, or don't have the stamina. They want to go on their phones and become world-famous and important and work on new gizmos and apps every day and be looked at by everyone and be payed attention to, etc, etc.
Since then I've not really been able to get my head around it all. It seems like although we talk about automation stealing jobs and everybody will have to be a "techie" to make any sort of decent living, there is definitely a small "elite" minority doing these very old-fashioned jobs that no-one wants or can do anymore. I fear sometimes that we (the younger generation) are slowly going mad with technology, and forgetting about the practical skills. What our own two hands were made to do so to speak.
We never got on to what I do in the end funnily enough.
Anyway, more relevantly, this lumberyard article is just a (slightly Americanised) theme of the above. It's these jobs that were done for a pittance in the past (sometimes even by slaves and prisoners), and now are these trades that sometimes are paying exorbitant salaries, just simply because nobody wants to do it, because no-one can be bothered anymore.
Apologies if this was long and off-topic, but I hope it's left some kind of thought somewhere.
You should see what it takes to be allowed to spread stucco on a wall here.
This sounds too familiar, like an employer talking about how they can't find anyone while plenty of unemployed or underemployed workers are willing to do the job.
There are plenty of people out there willing to this type of work, especially if the pay is that good.
Where are these jobs, and how does one get them?
But anyway, I think that maybe my above story is all just gobblewash. Overnight, I was thinking about how all these jobs that pay a lot for rather low-skill labour are all related to real-estate. Wood and bricks are what makes houses. I wonder if the good pay comes from that, rather than not many people wanting to do it.
Regardless, it's the opinion now quite a few of these labourers hold now - that the younger generation aren't able to do what they do. Maybe that's a little short-sighted, maybe it's on to something wrong with the future generations, maybe it's just wrong. Who knows.
Yeah, tl;dr - confirmation bias and sample of n=1
There are data points available for median wages of bricklayers and they are nowhere near the figures you described.
Trade jobs are good jobs. However, my experience shows that the trades in the US are actually not that unfilled, actually.
Trade salaries aren't going up--the classic sign of unmet demand.
This is so incredibly vapid and such a poor argument to make in favor of what is otherwise a valid case being made by the author. I can't believe Bloomberg used that quote.
You're a sophomore. That makes you, what... 21? It's a bit early to be coming to conclusions about relative success. At that age, they could be managing a gas station and would appear to be "economically further ahead."
The tortoise and the hare spring to mind. Wait ten years and then see how you're all doing.
I have a graduate degree. The CS portions of that have indeed been useful in my career as a programmer. However, the rest of my liberal arts education have been helpful in... well... conversing with other liberal arts grads. I sound fairly well-spoken, I suppose, when writing up documentation that no one usually reads. I can reasonably frame a critical argument, except that I live in a world now where most discussion takes place in social echo chambers anyway.
I am pleased with my life outcome, and do not envy the person being quoted, primarily because I lucked into a hot market at the ideal time. But if I were starting out today, I'm not so sure of how smug I would be in comparing my career prospects, core values, and likelihood of happiness and self-actualization to this person's.
Frankly, I think that "blue collar" work would have to pay twice as much as "white collar" work before society would start to re-align itself accordingly. Because quite frankly, we're going on 3 or 4 generations now of the mindset that white collar work is something to aspire to, while blue collar work is a sign of failure and low social status.
Our entrenched cultural bias lags behind the cold economic reality for most young people coming up today.
And of course there is nothing bad in choosing to study and get a degree (or however some higher education) or in choosing to start working and make a different career, but being proud of one's own ignorance?
Knowing how to frame a house does not automatically exclude some knowledge about Roman Theology.
Who cares about learning history? It's not like those who don't understand it are doomed to repeat it or anything. I'll leave that to the politicians - I have houses to frame. All knowledge should be directly translatable to $$$ or it's a waste of time. /s
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham%27s_pyramid#Graham.27s_...
The quote is a strawman fallacy and it's comparing apples-to-oranges. It's pretty clear that the kid was trying to compare a 4-year liberal arts degree to a 3-day course (or a series of courses) in management that only applies to lumber/construction.
It's probably not a bad deal to get paid $40k a year to learn to be a manager in construction, but your job prospects are far narrower than with a 4-year liberal arts degree and I can't imagine 84 Lumber got to be a $2billion without attacking conditions to their training programs (eg. you are liable to pay back some formula of your training expenses if you don't complete training and work for the company for some set amount of time).
The real question is, what is the median salary for an employee in each title/level in the organization.
I feel like the only reason they can even joke with a headline like this is technically the entry level positions don't require college degrees.
My second guess is the current regional managers making over $1m a year have some type of extended formal education. I could be wrong here, but probably not.
A casual search for "84 lumber manager" on LinkedIn produced 6 relevant listings on the front page - 5 of which had university degrees.
Of course we only need to do this when the original title is baity or misleading (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), but we've learned that when it is necessary, it's far better to take language from the article itself than to make up one's own. If you find the right phrase, ideally you don't even to change a word. The only thing I did after pasting the above was s/a/A/.