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Comment by jandrewrogers | Hacker News Reader

This would have a different dynamic in recent decades due to the chronic shortage of skilled labor.

Where is this chronic shortage of skilled labor? Every company is doing layoffs.

The existence of layoffs has little bearing on if there is a shortage of skilled workers. A layoff in marketing does not imply that a shortage of surgeons cannot exist.

Construction

Ablative human materials labour.

Yeah fair point, in blue collar and trades there's definitely a shortage. Hopefully more people will see trades as a career path instead of getting a bachelor in human resources management.

I wonder if that's actually a good idea. The best time to start learning a skill/trade (includes white collar stuff) seems to be when it's not YET in demand. For example, the worst time to start learning software development was at its covid peak in 2018/2019. If trades are going to be in huge demand now, a lot of people will start learning them and in 5 years of so we're back to square one with low pay and huge competition.

Then again it still probably is more useful than bachelor in hr. Trades are awesome "emergency" / "economy downturn" skills to have.

> covid peak in 2018/2019

That was before COVID though so I think you mean 2021/2022. 2018/2019 was a perfect time to have gone through a boot camp and get just enough certifications to get hired in a 6-figure job in 2021/2022 and then to get laid off in 2023/2024.

I meant 2019 but admittedly I only know of the Polish market and choices most "normal" (statistically) people make - which is to study the thing at the university without getting any job experience in the meantime. Here bootcamps were something maybe 1-2% of people did.

So if you started in 2019 you'd be graduating right into the "layoff" market in which juniors have virtually no possibility to get hired.

As I understand it, there is a shortage of decent working conditions for skilled trade jobs that don't involve writing code.

> chronic shortage of skilled labor

Yet hiring portals programmatically reject viable job applicants for being the wrong age, for insufficient job history for unskilled jobs, for multitudes of other irrelevancies kept secret in a black box.

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