So what are remaining high-paying white collar jobs which aren't exposed to this type of foreign competition?
I'm thinking lawyer, since legal skills aren't as portable across international borders?
I'm thinking lawyer, since legal skills aren't as portable across international borders?
Or make enough money to retire in the next couple years.
Really regret not doing that myself.
Just using some back of the envelope math from numbers I found. On the high end a plumbing company is valued at 5x EBITA. A very very good plumbing company has a 20% net profit margin (and no debt, no corporate taxes or anything so that net income and EBITA are essentially the same), and a good plumbing company makes $350k in revenue per truck.
So a $10 million plumbing company would need to have 30 trucks, all with high performing employees. They’d need to bring in $10 million in revenue at best in class profit margins.
That’s a huge operation. Very few plumbing businesses owners will ever get to that level. There are 3 times as many doctors in the US as there are business owners with business that do the kind of revenue in the above example. If you’re capable of running an operation like that you can probably succeed at plenty of other things.
That said, I agree with your overall assessment that $10 million single-owner plumbing businesses are rare, for the simple reason that $10 million single owner anything is rare. If it were not rare, by definition you'd have a lot more folks worth $10 million (and, in this case, a lot more people lining up to be plumbers), and then $10 million would probably not be worth very much.
The thing to keep in mind though is we’re talking small business, once you get to $10 million EBITA, you’re probably talking $50-$200 million in revenue and 200-500 employees. Thats firmly into mid sized business territory and I think revenue growth would be the or primary driver of the multiple.
From your source a 10x multiple would require very high revenue growth. That makes sense because you can get 10% average return with index funds, so you need to significantly beat that ROI.
Or work in start up, get acquired, and chill after ?
The path I outlined in my OP is a _very_ common path that people take in Australia and not at all unrealistic. The barrier to entry is drastically lower, and the access to funding/capital is far easier.
You can't become a licensed electrician without doing x hours of apprenticeship under licensed electrician. And each licensed electrician doesn't need more than one or two helpers at a time, so...
Hollywood is the same. Want to join SAG? You need to get cast in 5 SAG productions. Oh, but SAG productions only cast SAG actors? Oh well...
Meanwhile, all us nerds were trying to teach anyone interested how to write software. Look where that got us.
If AI really does come in and destroy all that no job is safe. Blue collar households don’t hire tradesman at anywhere near the rate that white collar households do.
In a major economic downturn like that new construction dries up. The commercial work will dry up to as all those white collar companies close their offices.
The end result is that existing tradesman will be fighting over a much smaller pie. Plus they’ll be dealing with competition from all the unemployed knowledge workers trying to change careers. In some states and some trades new entrants will be less of an issue, but most trades in most states aren’t supply restricted like the above poster’s electrician example.
My point is getting to the trades isn’t going to protect you from AI taking your job unless AI takes over a small percent of jobs and stops. I don’t actually think AI is going to take all that many jobs myself, but if I’m wrong we’re going to have to completely rework our economy.