As Demand for Welders Resurges, Community Colleges Offer Classes | Hacker News Reader

As Demand for Welders Resurges, Community Colleges Offer Classes

nytimes.com

81 pointsimjk58 comments

My prediction with nothing but anecdotes!

We have drastically overstated the importance of college the last 20 years, sending far too many people deeper into the education system as opposed to encouraging more trade craft. We are going to end up with a shortage of qualified tradespeople in traditionally blue collar industries such as plumbing, welding, and electrical work here in the near future, especially because "people with college degrees don't do those jobs" (which is a tragic way to view such qualified craft.

There are massive numbers of older folks in various trades who are getting set to retire, and there is a clear shortage of people ready to replace them. In other words, it's going to be very, very expensive to hire an electrician here in the near future.

We just had our house rewired (old 1940s knob and tube), was chatting with our electrician a bit after the job, and he was talking about how absolutely insane it's been for him the past 3-4 years. He's a younger guy and he said there is already a huge shortage of folks trained and certified to handle a lot of the work needed in the city, causing prices to increase sharply. The boom economy (Seattle) certainly has a lot to do with it, but even in general, he commented about how he just doesn't know that many electricians his age.

What's your prediction for demand in 2055, when someone starting college, welding, etc is about a decade from retirement? Gotta skate to where the puck is going to be.

Most cities' 30-40 year plans at this point are envisioning lots of steel framed buildings being constructed. So, in 40 years, someone just starting out now is quite possibly going to be the chief to a crew of younger people building all those shiny new buildings. That's not to negate education; in welding, knowing how different materials fuse, new techniques, etc, is vital. Even Blue Collar trades have a continuing education requirement if you want to stay relevant.

Or it could all end up being done by robots. Better hope your practical experience is accompanied by enough high tech knowledge to qualify you for supervising or constructing those...

I think I'd state it another way. We've overstated education as a path to a good job, but not the importance of education. Education is important in and of itself, specialization can indeed enhance one's job prospects, but general secondary education isn't or should not only be interpreted as a means to a job but rather a means to personal growth.

Im not saying we should all turn to soft majors, the contrary, there is too much of that, but we do need the GE classes even for line cooks and anyone else doing menial work. It should give us all a better understanding of that which affects our daily lives.

Higher education is absolutely a means to personal growth, but at ~$100K in the US it's a really extravagant form of personal growth.

"Education" != "University". You never said that it did, but I just wanted to be clear on that. A line cook can read wikipedia and books from the library, or take community college or learning annex classes if he or she wants to further their education. Kahn academy, meetup groups, MOOCs, book clubs and autodidactic self study are a few of many ways to learn more about the world and grow as a person.

The question is, why don't more people avail themselves of these (mostly) free resources? I think that the answer is that the majority of people don't care, and don't feel as enriched by knowledge for the sake of knowledge as the average hn member, or even the average college student. After a hard day of menial work most people want to relax and watch tv or have a beer with friends. The majority of people care about "education" in as much as it can help them to get easier and higher paying jobs, as far from laboring as a line cook as possible. Let's not pretend that the average McDonald's worker is thirsting for knowledge about the humanities or would materially benefit from it in any way.

The idea that everyone should be pursuing secondary education seems like a bit of projection. If general education classes were beneficial to you, then that's great. But most people are more concerned with their families and relationships, paying their bills and enjoying life in their own way than they are with learning and personal growth. If a trade school is the best way for them to do those things, then so be it. Telling people to study things they aren't interested in because "it's good for them" probably isn't going to help much.

> I think that the answer is that the majority of people don't care, and don't feel as enriched by knowledge for the sake of knowledge as the average hn member, or even the average college student. After a hard day of menial work most people want to relax and watch tv or have a beer with friends.

From what I have seen of a lot of undergrads who are at college because it is "the thing to do", they treat their classwork as the menial work you mentioned above.

> Let's not pretend that the average McDonald's worker is thirsting for knowledge about the humanities or would materially benefit from it in any way.

I would like to examine how much the average humanities college student is thirsting for knowledge about the humanities, too.

that's why mexicans keep going to usa, it's fair common to meet welders over here.

It's already here :-). I work in construction tech. The workers making the most money on jobsites are not college-educated civil engineers. They are experienced superintendents, who grew up in the trades, have no college debt, and own multiple homes in CA. Learn a trade--electrician, mechanical, etc. or software or sales, etc.

In the case of Electricians and Plumbers the time requirements for becoming licensed are steep. In Maryland for example to become a "Master" electrician you need to work in the field for 7 years as an apprentice. That's kind of nuts when you consider that's about the same amount of time it takes to train a doctor.

depends what a master electrician means if it is like the UK EngTech 7 years seems about right

You have the do the Trade apprenticeship (4 years) plus the advanced apprenticeship to get your EngTech - assuming your going in straight with no qualifications

Well I think it makes sense, there is tons of different situations that an electrician can face and if they don't have the experience, they could rig the wiring bad. I worked with my dad before, he has over 30+ years experience, he has showed and told me of jobs that were done by guys with only a couple years experience where they messed up the job bad.

I was a little confused based on your report of MD compared to my home state. I googled and it turns out MD is pretty normal after all.

When you apprentice you sign a contract stating what you'll be paid as you learn and attend classes. In my state the union rate is a bit over $30/hr and the legal contract for apprentices over the course of their 4 years (same as in MD) must average at least 60% of union rate. Usually it progresses somewhat steeply over those four years. Doctors tend not to be cash flow positive for a little while... electricians are cash flow positive after a month or so (need to pay for tools, etc)

You can't work as an electrician for those 4 years without being directly (like in sight) supervised by a master electrician. Its like being a student, although you're getting paid rather than paying for it. I think the closest doctor analogy to electrician apprenticeship would be "internship year"

After your 4 year contract is up you get a journeymans card, and can work by yourself without a master directly supervising you. Not 7 years, not even in MD. Very controversially some states allow journeymen to act as mini-masters supervising a small number of unlicensed workers (like 1, although I've heard as many as 3 depending on state) with the assumption they'll be grunt labor. Your boss will remain a master electrician. I think a pretty good doctor analogy would be "resident years"

After a couple years you can test for master, and if you make it, you'll be able to supervise and train your own small herd of apprentices and generally get paid a bit more than a journeyman. Also bonding and insurance and licenses and permits are only possible if you're a master. If you're smart enough to become a master there is really no downside to becoming one. I think the closest medical analogy to a master electrician is "hospital administrator" or maybe "department head" or "private practice"

An apprentice sits in a truck owned by a master with the master physically in the drivers seat next to him, a journeyman sits in a truck owned by the master with a fairly traditional somewhat distant supervisory relationship with his boss who is a master, and a master owns trucks and probably has some combination of journeymen working for him and noob apprentices learning from him. There are plenty of master electricians who don't have employees, but you need to be a master to have employees.

One of my army buddies got out, got a philosophy degree, eventually became a master electrician and we occasionally talk (also out of politeness he doesn't ask me to fix computers and I don't ask him to wire things). I always kinda wondered which of us made the right choices. Obviously he's richer than I am and has a more stable working environment and will have a far wealthier retirement than I will, but I am safer and healthier at my desk (or ... am I?)

Right, bottom line is to start your own business as an electrician you pretty much need to be a master or convince one to work for you. This whole scheme is going to limit supply. My point was I don't think that people's stigma against blue collar work is what is restricting the supply of a lot of trades people.

It's not that surprising considering how dangerous but necessary electrical work often is. If you screw up, you could die, the building could burn down, other people could die, etc.

Absolutely and if your working with non domestic supplies (high voltage/amperage)you hope to god that if you have an bad accident that you are killed outright.

In high school, I took all the shop classes - wood, metal and auto. The auto shop teacher was angry with me, told me I didn't belong in shop because I was going to college, and that I was taking the place of some other hypothetical student.

My view was I like making things, which is why I wanted to go to college to learn engineering. Those shop classes wound up helping me a lot in my engineering work. I've known engineers who've never used a machine tool in their life, and frankly their work is crippled as a result.

See the book "Herman the German" by Neuman for a similar viewpoint.

I worked my way through college by being an electronics technician. I got paid twice for it - once in cash, and the other ever since in having learned the real world side of electronics.

In university, I found that the lecturers that had worked out in industry were far more entertaining and informative than pure academics. They knew what the shortcomings of theory were, and how you had to mold the theoretical to match the practical.

One example in a neuro class talking about EEGs, a lecturer was saying that the solution between electrodes didn't have to be anything special (usually it's a medical supply) and that even mayonnaise would do, he'd used it once. Fast forward a few years, and one of my fellow students was working in a lab and they ran out of goo. She says she went down and bought a jar of mayonnaise and it worked fine - and in the setting of a medical lab, it even smells a bit medicinal.

"Herman the German" started out as an apprentice in an auto repair shop, and learned that horse manure would stop radiator leaks. Decades later, a leak in the GE turbine test facility was causing lots of problems, and he fixed it right up with, you guessed it!

If you like practical engineering, it really is a great read.

Not everyone can weld.

Welding is a difficult skill to do well. Anyone can become a crappy welder in a few hours. Tack welding some sheet metal to a frame is not hard. Being able to weld two pipes into a liquid-tight T-connection stronger than the pipes is a skill beyond most working welders. That level of skill may take years to acquire. The welders who make the big bucks are the ones who can do that.

(I've tried TIG welding. I suck.)

It doesn't sound like they expect people to pick it up in a day...

I own a TIG welder and have done lots of welding with mild and alloy steel (mostly 300 series stainless).

TIG welding is like learning to ride a bike. It's difficult at first because various parts of your body have to work in concert, but once you get the hang of it you can do really great work. I've not done much overhead welding yet though, that's where the wages are earned.

What's so significant about welding something above you? (Unless I'm misunderstanding 'overhead welding'?)

I've completed a certification in TIG, MIG and Stick welding and metal fabrication.

Welding overhead is considered more difficult because gravity is making the molten metal run away from the joint. Less metal in the join means less strength. Too much metal means you have wasted welding rod AND possibly put more heat into the weld than needed which weakens it as well.

For pipe welding if you can imagine a horizontal join of 2 round pipes, coming around the underside is where you will be doing an overhead weld.

I have family who are Union pipe-fitters.

Times have been good for the past few years due to fracking and (here in the Midwest) refurbishment of many nuclear powerplants.

The fracking boom is probably over though and I believe most of the nuclear powerplant work came as plants built in the 70s reached EOL.

I don't see any sort of blossoming of welding in this country. Production welding is robots or offshore and has been for a long time. Same with shipbuilding. There's always architectural work but that's been pretty moribund for some time now. Industrial work is highly cyclical.

On top of what you mentioned, if dollar remains strong or appreciates more, then that will make US exports less competitive and could take some steam away from industries demanding these trades. Especially when it comes to manufacturing.

Additionally, I read articles like this and see that entry-level wages for a welder are $16.50. If businesses are experiencing an actual shortage and want to draw new people into a trade, they are going to have to show that with more attractive wages or other perks such as paying to train people.

There's welding and there's welding. Structural stick welding, I can train you on in a few hours. That's not going much higher than $16.50 per hour.

Speciality welding -- of the level of precision needed to make lightweight parts (aerospace, bicycle), some types of artwork, underwater, etc. -- that's a much more skilled job.

It'd be like grouping basic IT and kernel hacking as the same thing.

I agree with your assessment, at least in the Midwest these jobs left with manufacturing. Perhaps now that they have dismantled the unions they are planning on bringing some of these jobs back. In the late 90's they were training a lot of people for bottom end drafting jobs so they could work cleaning up the architects drawings during the housing boom. I sure hope its not in preparation for a future conflict, my welding teacher said they were training welders before WW2.

If you're interested in welding but don't know where to start, here's a couple of good resource:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/04/16/unlock-your-inner-...

http://www.makershed.com/products/make-primer-welding-pdf

If you happen to be a welder reading this, either in training or in work, I have a small seed to plant: Practice best practices for 5 years and then come to the developing world. Practical, visionable, safety-first, disciplined skills are what moderately developed countries are shouting for, and you can call your price.

Which countries did you have in mind?

What countries are you thinking about? And what do you see as 'call your price'? Who will pay for a welder from another country who that doesn't speak the local language? In most 'moderately developed' countries (countries I'd call like that - much of South America, Eastern Europe, parts of Asia) many more people know how to weld than people in the US or Western Europe do.

Yes, there's a lot more welding in moderately developed countries, but a real fear over safety and quality of work.

A typical story: 30 years ago few people knew how to weld, best practices, they just did it, and those new to welding learnt from those that taught themselves. 30 years later quality is far more important than 'just doing it' but there's a fear of not getting it done right, of having missed something in this period of self-instruction.

You, as a German, Finnish, American etc trained welder, come from history of best practices developed by companies that can afford to pay for quality, and where quality overrides cost. You have a lot to bring an industry that's seeking to rapidly move from cheap to quality, from loosely fitting to international quality. And you're there to transfer expertise.

Needing to speak the local language isn't important - the orders are for export to international standards and specifications, and that for domestic consumption follows the international standards anyway.

I'm not a welder, but I know many who are. They're mainly experience with naval and nautical areas - oil rigs, ships, winches, etc in Asia, a lot focused in China, some in Middle East. Not just welding, this applies to any skilled engineer.

I'm skeptical that a Western welder would command rates 5x or 10x above the national wages, which is what they'd need to be paid to substantially improve upon their domestic market value. And that's not even counting for relocation costs and time, living in another country with a substantially lower living standard, etc. If there really would be a market for this, it would happen. Instead, what I see is Polish welders moving to Western Europe, where they get some extra training, and after that are paid less than their local colleagues.

Despite fear mongering like the GP, welding is a commodity skill, and yes they make OK money (compared to most other blue collar jobs) - but much of that is in overtime and even more so, in hazard pay. I wouldn't want to put on a diving suit and weld an oil platform I don't know how many meters below sea level - and judging from what it costs to get someone to do it, many people think the same.

Lastly, and this is not to dismiss the skill of welding, but a welder is not an 'engineer'. Welding is a practical skill, not hard to get started with, and 90% of all welding jobs can be done by someone with 6 months of training. It's the few highly specialized jobs that take more knowledge and experience, and it's there that the money is. In that respect, welding is (dare I say it?) not unlike software development.

Something I posted on Reddit:

"I would argue that this is very stupid advice and it enables people that really don't want to study hard.

An educated workforce is of crucial importance, be it an educated welder, lawyer or engineer. Educated people find it easier to adapt to new economic needs and it's far easier for an engineer to do a welder's work than a welder to do an engineer's work. And yes, I'm an engineer and wouldn't even blink if I had to get my hands dirty.

There's also the part where educated people have a more fulfilling life, grater freedom, more options, broader intellectual horizons.

I see a lot of people around me that decry the lack of good tradesmen.On the other hand, my dad is a great electrician and can't get a decent, comfortably paid job. You know why? Because the need isn't there, because brains are more productive than brawn."

So you, engineer, could become a great welder at the drop of a hat, because you are educated and typical welders are not?

From paying visits to the department, my local community college's welding program is basically a 2-year education on metallurgy. I don't consider the people coming out of that program "uneducated" in the slightest.

I am a software engineer and weld as a necessary component to other hobbies. I have easily spent a weeks worth of classes self studying to even be able to do it decently.

Types of welding gases, processes, and safe material handling is just a small part of it.

In order for the so called engineer , to assume the responsibilities of a well trained , competent welder the engineer would have to have excellent hand eye coordination , and excellent kinesthetic awareness in the weld zone, this trait is what should persuade a candidate further , its what separates the top from the rest , and even a person of lower intelligence should discover if they have this trait. Having spent 1500 hrs in welding school you could tell the few who were gifted kinesthetically , and its just easier for them, they are welding in the zone or zen, its god gifted but still requires practice.

I am a developer, but I encouraged one of my sons to sign up for welding school. I am trying to get my other son, who didn't want to go to college and has a crappy call center job, to sign up too. It looks to me like a good way to earn a living for someone who doesn't want to go to college or can't afford it -- not everyone wants to acquire massive debt before launching their career. One or two semesters at a tech school is far easier to pay for than four or more years of college. It's costing me about $6k to pay for my son's classes.

However, NIOSH has concluded that welders can be harmed by welding smoke even when the concentration s of the individual components are well below OSHA permissible exposure limits.

http://www.afscme.org/news/publications/workplace-health-and...

Is it that hard for that kind of jobs to be automated, or semi-automated - so we have remotely controlled robots to do it?

Robot welding for repetitive jobs has long been automated. But the skill in welding is not so much performing the motions as working out what needs to be done.

Anything that could not be remotely controlled with a joystick? You put the task on, the robot just gives control to the operator at critical moments?

How does that help? You still need a skilled operator, surely?

That I will increase the skilled operator productivity several-fold.

You expect the skilled operator to perform multiple complex weldings at the same time ?

A friend of mine is a welder, who has gotten into programming those robots.

After showing a weld to his boss, his boss replied with "Didn't the robot do that?", to which he said "Well I programmed the robot!"

This isn't new; Portland Community College had a welding department back in 2000. Many different buildings across campus had display cases and installations of metal sculptures and signs produced by that welding department.

I always found it slightly funny that the artwork the welding department at my local community college produced was miles better than the artwork the art department at my local 4-year produced.

It's all about craftsmanship.

It's as if supply is meeting demand, remarkable, truly remarkable ;)

I'm surprised when I hear about community colleges without vocational programs. The combination is really helpful and better serves a community.

> No. 4 story on HN

My sides!

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