Impending Labor Shortage

[kwired]

I often think back to when I started in this work after high school, so 1989 or so. I had worked for a local company for about two years. At the time I was paid $9.50/hr and had full health coverage, two weeks paid vacation and bonuses every Christmas. According to this website that would be the equivalent of $18.23/hr today. At the end of 2009 when I quit working for that company (with a 16 year break in there...) I was making $16.50/hr and had no health coverage, no paid vacation, and no bonuses. Other guys I know, good electricians with over ten years with their employer, are making $18.50/hr nowadays - so the same as what I earned in my second year after high school when adjusted for inflation.

It gets even more interesting when you compare the hourly rates from back then to now. That same company I worked for charged $25/hr to customers in 1989. Adjusted for inflation, that comes to $47.96 today. No one I know can send a guy out for $47.96 per hour, pay that guy $18-$20/hr, offer health benefits and paid vacation, plus cover workman's comp and their part of the taxes and remain in business today.

So there are huge disparities between inflation, costs of doing business and salaries/rates in just the last 20-25 years that are squeezing employees and customers alike. As a young person today, you would have to take into account whether or not your chosen career will give you a fighting chance at making it financially or not. I don't see our work as offering that option to too many young people nowadays.

With what you said one could still find a pretty good job as an "in house" electrician for some commercial/industrial company, but may find it difficult to do the same working for a contractor.

 

[readydave8]

all this may be true, however:

It seems common to every year I remember living thru, the present is bad, the past was better, and the future will be worse.

 

[PetrosA]

all this may be true, however:

It seems common to every year I remember living thru, the present is bad, the past was better, and the future will be worse.

I think that's true to a point, but in all fairness, you have to admit that in our field, things have changed a lot since the 1980s. The web site I linked to uses someone's idea of a value for inflation to base the calculations off of, but in reality the price of getting electrical work done today is way higher than just taking inflation into account would predict. It would be even higher if there were real increases in wages and if the bulk of product we install were still produced in the USA, probably by close to an order of magnitude

 

[DougAles]

.......Since I entered the workforce (in the early 70's), I have seen the steady closing of opportunities for advancement. "Back then," several of my supervisors had moved up - often to senior positions - thought they had not gone to college. Ironically, they often found themselves implementing policies that closed the doors to future ambitions souls.

The electrical trade used to be a great launching point into other areas. Not any more; "journeyman" is as far as you're going. Good luck moving out of physically demanding construction work as you age. No degree, no future. Who, I ask, would want to enter such a field?

For those electricians who seek to move into white collar positions that now require a bachelors degree, have you considered going back to school?

A wile back, I was talking to a person that really wanted to be a nurse but lacked the required schooling. She did not enjoy her job. I asked her why she was not getting the required degree. She said "But I'm 48 years old and it would take four years. If I go back to school now I will not have my nursing degree until I'm 52!" So I asked her how old she will be in four years if she doesn't go to school. It's now a bit over four years later. She gave her notice to her employer this May and is now a nurse and loving her carrier.

 

[Fulthrotl]

Well not everyone is cut out to earn Masters or Doctorate degrees either.

yup.



the problem is, we have, by and large, a pretty good life in the US.

my wife is director of compensation for a fortune 500. she pretty much knows what everyone's bottom line
is, on a global level. manufacturing here has to compete with china, and every other nation on the planet.

and it's really hard to be happy if one possesses no gratitude for what you do have.

and it's almost impossible to experience gratitude without a range of experience (that means bad, as well) so that
we will know what good is.

so, having the best of everything without exception will make you the most miserable person you know.
most all of us have food, clothing, and shelter, or we wouldn't be reading this.
a lot of people don't have enough to be able to sit at a computer, complaining about everything going to hell.

 

[fmtjfw]

For about 35 years I worked as a systems software engineer and software architect. I started at $22.5K in 1979 in my first non-academic job and finished with years of 6 figure salaries. I got burnt out. It was difficult, exacting, non-forgiving work. The companies I worked for started to merge and/or ship my work overseas. It was a new company every two years.

I decided to become an electrician, I already had background from my father, an EE with a power company. I liked working with my hands when I worked software, wiring up the signal cables in labs for instance.

I worked for 5 years from the time I got my Journeyman's License, worked for about 1/3 what I had earned as a software engineer, and then I retired. I enjoyed the mixture of head work and hand work. I enjoyed the fact that they could not ship my job overseas. I enjoyed the fact that "I didn't need the job" and could do what I believed was right, rather than cut corners as my boss occasionally suggested.

My only regret is that I retired rather than continuing working at 65. My wife has MS and I need to help her much more than in the past. I teach, do small projects, help my buddy out on some of his jobs, and argue with you guys and my friends in IAEI to keep my hand in.

 

[ActionDave]

the problem is, we have, by and large, a pretty good life in the US.

my wife is director of compensation for a fortune 500. she pretty much knows what everyone's bottom line
is, on a global level. manufacturing here has to compete with china, and every other nation on the planet.

and it's really hard to be happy if one possesses no gratitude for what you do have.

and it's almost impossible to experience gratitude without a range of experience (that means bad, as well) so that
we will know what good is.

so, having the best of everything without exception will make you the most miserable person you know.
most all of us have food, clothing, and shelter, or we wouldn't be reading this.
a lot of people don't have enough to be able to sit at a computer, complaining about everything going to hell.

Randy, you need to quit being an electrician and get somewhere where more people can here what you have to say. Good stuff.

 

[PetrosA]

Randy, you need to quit being an electrician and get somewhere where more people can here what you have to say. Good stuff.

Hear, hear!

 

[Fulthrotl]

Randy, you need to quit being an electrician and get somewhere where more people can here what you have to say. Good stuff.

well, thanks, but a lot of times my point of view isn't so well received.

a while ago, i was watching a ted talk, about water. not that big a deal,
except that by current estimates, half the people on earth don't have safe
drinking water. dysentery, water borne illness, etc.

https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_pritchard_invents_a_water_filter#t-553034

this guy developed a nanofilter that will take everything out of water except sodium.
he does a thing where you buy a filter bottle, and they donate one to one of the
folks who don't even have a mouthful of clean water.

so, i bought one. it's in my "not near anywhere" backpack, so i can refill my camelback
from wherever. so when, as a luxury, i go out where there isn't anyone, playing on
a motorcycle, "roughing it" is pretty cushy. i can look at that silly knapsack, and feel
such a sense of gratitude for my life and where i live that it's overwhelming. the contents
include a locator beacon, so if i need to push the "mommy" button, someone will show up
and help me out of a fix. an iridium pager, so i can talk to anyone, anywhere. couple days
worth of food, dried. a gps. clothes, socks, yada, yada, yada.

this is so i can go "rough" it, as a recreation. what bullshit. i have little idea of what "rough" is.

one rainy morning, down in the port, there was a street person who'd had all his clothes and
shoes stolen, and was out in the rain, with a piece of cardboard wrapped around his waist.
that's all he had to his name, a piece of wet cardboard. no clothes, no shoes, nothing.

this wasn't somewhere in africa, this was 25 minutes from my house.
and i look at that stupid pack, and it's hard not to feel very, very rich.

now, to try to wrap it back into the thread, and the doom and gloom that seems
rampant, when i am in a state of gratitude, irregardless of how i got there, good
stuff seems to just show up.

so if i had to go to a homeless shelter and volunteer to get out of an ungrateful funk,
it's the single best use of my time to change my attitude so i can experience good
stuff going my way.

there is no shortage of work. there is no shortage of opportunity. there is no shortage of
abundance. there is only a shortage of gratitude, and the simple fact
that it is done unto you as you believe.

that six tons of copper i pulled out of the ground last week... left me feeling pretty grateful.
i found five more tons yesterday.

gratitude rocks.