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The downside to that is it is much harder to continue working as you age depending on the trade. Usually the "best" route there is to start early, learn what you can, and go independent eventually hiring other people to do the hard stuff you no longer can do.
Also need to be careful specializing.... I went super specific and well... Yeah... Ice cream refrigeration machines aren't exactly ubiquitous. I should have stuck with residential HVAC but I hated crawling under houses and being on call all night :/
I currently work in a factory (yeah I'm just chock full of bad decisions) and I can say from what I've gathered from my coworkers being a "machinist" isn't so much of a viable trade anymore. Everyone pays like shit now.
Yes, agreed at least for my industry. My company hires "machinists" with no experience or education, gives them minimal training on how to push a button and not stick their hand in running machinery, and expects at least half to leave for a job that offers ten cents an hour more as soon as they can. They killed the pension for new employees and wonder why no new employees have any "loyalty" to the company.
I've always had massive respect for welders. That shit is an art. Not so with the folks we are hiring these days. Fast food fry cook wages don't get you artisan welders.
Excellent point right here. I spent nearly twenty years in a trade till arthritis began to develop. I spent the last three years of that job using the education benefits to get a degree and a new tech skill that has morphed into my current career. (I looked into running my own crew but that particular trade was and is in a downturn.)
Glad you mentioned that. It can be very hard on the body, and for older people they will likely want to transition into ownership, or a supervisory or admin role...and those slots are limited.
We need to think about using technology to help people work less. Not just fatten profits.
It's such a hard topic to deal with because you have to tackle the concept of ownership.
As it currently stands in capitalist economies the owner, as the title implies, owns the means to increase productivity that would enable people to work less, but since they are the owners they see it is morally repugnant to have other people who did "nothing extra" get "more" money as the math is essentially: less work, same pay = greater value, except you didn't provide any greater value to them, the machine/technology that they own did.
It's a shitty situation for sure :(
Yup, this is all true. Worker cooperatives, unions, and expiring patents faster are all things that can help. None are a magic wand. But they make a difference.
Only thing I'll disagree with you here is the machinist comment. My dad's been a machinist for like 45 years now, same industry, same building.
He is constantly complaining to me that they can't find machinists, or even people who are willing to learn. I have zero machining experience, and he was trying to get me hired at one point, that's how desperate they were getting.
And it's not a bad company, to be clear, they're a government contractor, have very good benefits, competitive pay (he's even complained they've given guys with a year's experience multi-dollar raises to keep them), etc.
According to him, if you have mechanical aptitude and are willing to learn all of the intricacies of machining, you can and will make a decent salary for the rest of your life so long as you're willing to work.