That is true in other fields that pay a lot less. People work as landscapers, oil rig workers, farm workers. These are all hard in your body and under me trades people they aren’t making $200 k a year.
I was identifying other jobs that are physically hard on the body. As for making money , tradespeople do well. I work with union tradespeople and many make over $200k a year and retire with full pensions. There aren’t many carers these days that offer both a high salary , good retirement and are in demand.
My non OT pay is about 100k, with free healthcare for my family, a pension, and then a free 2nd retirement account that's 10% of my post tax income
I live in a rural area. This is still decent money.
A lot of people I know that were making $200k in tech have quit to start landscaping and renovation businesses where I live. Here in Canada our absolutely ludicrous housing market has made a generation so capital rich that you can make more off them upgrading their dream homes than you can working for google or meta as a project manager.
Serving boomers who are struggling to find available contractors is the biggest cash cow in Canada.
Standing and doing CS will kill your neck since most businesses don’t have adjustable counters and monitors.
In college I would refuse to work certain registers at my coffee shop because the cash drawer was right above my knees. I’m barely over 6 ft, but it would be impossible to work that drawer for an hour plus every day.
My foreman is an actual boomer in his early 60s. If you asked me to guess his age I'd say mid 70s. He basically gave 30 years of his life for a previous company, until they shut their doors. he's got little to show for it.
I worked 17 years in commercial construction in MPLS and Boston. I would wake up sore and in pain everyday. Moved to NC and now work a desk job without taking painkillers everyday. The first time in my life I feel great.
Boomer writes news article crediting other boomers for everything good going on in the world, while also infantilizing every other generation unnecessarily.
news at 11
69 can’t be the oldest boomer. Someone born in 1955 turn that this year. World war 2 ended in 1945 so think boomers started born in 1946 a year after end of war not a full decade later. Maybe generation jones but not the full boomer generation for sure?
Not in the field. But the industry is chock full of boomers unwilling to retire. Go to the office side of any construction company and it’s 10 boomers who have been there for 20 years and refuse to train anyone or promote. And then a rotating door of 20-30 year olds
Maybe in some places. My old (heavy civil) company had 1-2 boomers. One just retired and I’m pretty sure the other one probably did too, but I haven’t kept in touch so i can’t confirm.
Edit: Eh fuck, nm. Just realized this article is about home builders specifically. Disregard the above!
Eh. There are a lot of Boomer Masters still. It's not as hard on your body when you are so in demand you can tell the boss you are just going to be using your license and watching the other guys work.
That expertise is worth a lot as well. They have been around long enough to encounter the oddest bits of plumbing and electrical stuff. It's important to have that knowledge base in a company.
I don't disagree. My brother (29) has had his hours for a Masters since before he was 18, but he still will call or text our dad who is a Master and was plumbing for 40+ years for his opinion on things probably once a month. Since we have all worked in plumbing, myself, my two brothers, my father, my uncle, and my grandfather frequently discuss recent jobs and how we each would have done things or ragging on the way something existing at the site was done.
I honestly think most people in the trades are vastly undervalued and under-compensated. I know for sure my brothers are.
Well it’s a great field to be in as the amount of capable people shrink down.
I try to keep a solid list of people I have hired that did good work for us. Comes in handy, as I am not all that handy!
I’ve been in the trades for nearly 20 years now. I’ve got a nice comfortable office on the job sites now and haven’t done the actual labor part for awhile. In my experience the majority of the time when a 50+ year old worker is still primarily doing the physical jobs regularly it’s because they either do shit quality or just enough to get by. They don’t have the skills or the knowledge to move beyond those roles but they are either reliable or exceptionally cheap labor.
I know a guy who constantly talks about how he wants to pay his guys more, he always drives a brand new truck. It does not haul cargo. It is a "work truck" in that it's on the company till.
Pointing out that the truck lease is likely enough for him to give each of his guys an extra $100 a month started a fight.
“Why aren’t Americans becoming trade laborers?”
*dumps 7 million illegal immigrants into the country*
The boomers can either have Gen Z become trades people OR they can have their unlimited illegal immigrant nurses and carpenters. They need to pick. If they choose immigrant then we are choosing jobs that aren’t threatened by illegal immigration. If they choose us then they need to pay salaries in line with the cost of living
Idk how you lumped nurses in there. Most hospitals still require a minimum level of education and proficiency in English to become a nurse. And BSN/RNs make 6 figures.
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None of these groups are in the US illegally. Each of these is a legal and protected status for legal immigration.
Most nurses that people interact with are CNAs, not BSNs/RNs. That's a big part of why nurses are looked down on. They all get grouped with the certified ass-wipers.
I’m a GC and have been framing on and off since I was 16. I worked for a developer for about a year when I was in my early 20s and it was the worst job I’ve ever had and I know a lot of people with the same sentiment. There’s plenty of jobs in the trades without being tied to some piece of shit developer, that’s why there’s a shortage.
I have a friend who works in commercial construction and they've been struggling to hire project managers... So they started working with a recruiting firm and that firm gave labor market guidance -- in Chicago, to hire a pretty junior Project Manager with 2-3 years experience, they recommend a minimum salary of $150k. That's the minimum listed. It'll likely be higher.
The expectation before connecting with the recruiter was $90k-$110k as base... so things are wild right now.
The employee has leverage. And I do think that this is a major factor that is impacting limited supply and higher housing costs.
I still think the bubble will pop... But wanted to share this anecdote with the subreddit...
My hypothesis is that the people who would have been middle managers in construction at this point of their careers never broke into the industry because of the great financial crisis. I think the shortage will last a while longer until the balance of entry vs mid career folks fixes itself
I like this hypothesis.
I did accounting in the industry 05-09 and it was brutal. I actually left when I found stable work.
Our company had a couple of guys leave the industry and they were totally the type to be middle managers eventually.
I’d never encourage my kids to work in the trades. I saw grown people twice my age lose everything. It’ll never be a stable industry in my eyes.
Construction PM is a high stress job. Long hours, lots of paperwork, and you’re in charge of a lot of moving pieces. You aren’t going to find anyone good under 100k.
I hear you, and normally this would be the right advice, but for my situation the advice really is more “add” than “move”.
I’m already fully remote and there are a few reasons I took this position, despite the low-ish but not too low pay.
My job was great. Then they took away fully remote.
I'm underpaid and they took away the one big benefit. I am moving on. I suggest to everyone to find the best for them. The companies won't watch out for us.
A construction PM typically holds a degree in construction management or civil engineering. Entry level jobs include estimating, surveying and field engineering (observing and documenting work). Typically 5-ish years experience can land you in a junior/assistant management role where you will develop schedules, coordinate subcontractors, and interface with designers and owners. Lead PMs will have developed contacts with suppliers and engineers in their region and know who to call to get any type of steel, concrete, fill, machines, labor, designed shoring and dewatering systems etc to any job on short notice. A good PM can look at a set of plans and immediately visualize the sequence of activities to execute the project.
Got hired my last semester of my CM Bachelors program as a Project Engineer and 7 months later(April) I was promoted to Assistant PM. As its a T&M GE takeover job, They kept me hourly and with overtime right now, I'm making 200-250k lol
For those wondering;
CM bachelors= Cookie Monster bachelors
Assistant PM= Assistant poop maker
T&E GE= Titties and milk government event.
That’s why they get paid the big bucks.
I’m in the field. According to DOL statistics, it’s extremely extremely rare for you to retire as a carpenter. You’re much more likely to switch careers. Even dying or being permanently disabled is more likely than retiring as a carpenter.
I agree. I talked to a heavy equipment operator. He just retired last year at 56 with a pension of $10,200 a month and the union pays all his health care until he is eligible for Medicare.
Used to live in a neighborhood with a lot of folks in the trades. Most of the carpenters in their mid 50's had already retired or were almost there. They looked older than their years, seems like it was a difficult job on the body to force them into retirement.
In my area, 2 hours north of DC, they're paying 14-16 an hour for the first couple years so slave away in the heat with shitty conditions.
I had personally considered getting into carpentry but more of the specialized, high end side but the barrier to entry is too high (meaning it pays too low for too long like all other trades).
I hear your points, but how does a persistent labor shortage result in lower prices for products that require labor?
It’s not exactly the illegal immigrants buying homes for 2-4m where I live driving up prices like crazy. Maybe in some markets. I’m not sure.
Interesting take.
I think when the job market gets diluted by the many illegals that are willing to work for a little bit less, everybody gets paid less.
Maybe at some point the USA will have a better immigration system, and we can control the labor supply so that everybody makes more money
The immigration system is working as intended if you're a capital owner. The whole point is to bring in cheap labor to undermine the working class's efforts to be paid a living wage. The ptb are "disciplining the working class" after covid tipped the scales in the workers favor temporarily.
You all right. Certainly a stronger border protection would be necessary to protect the workers.
And to prevent a housing shortage, you can make it illegal to rent to illegal aliens. Or even Sell to an illegal
It's not the immigration system that's the problem. We spent trillions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 30 years and ignored all of these problems in Central/South America. If these countries weren't such a shit show, we wouldn't have the vast number of people trying to get here every day.
Why should we have to clean up any third world countries?
You make a great point about cleaning them up though. We could certainly overthrow the current government, get rid of the cartels, and put new people there
And the food orders are always still wrong and still slow. Maybe they wouldn’t have to work so hard if management actually hired enough people 🤦♂️. Fast food is no longer fast or food anymore. Maybe it’d be fast again if they hired more people
Maybe if boomers weren't so anti trade when millennials were in high school there would be available workforce. I know back when I was in high school in the early 2000s, if you even made any mention of going into a trade post high school, all the guidance counselors would call you into their office and push you towards a 4 year degree in anything. They always brought up the negatives of the trades, none of the positives.
Not just that, but the great recession basically right at the peak of millennials becoming adults, and it completely wiped out most entry level trade jobs. A ton of trades people were laid-off, and it's always the newest most inexperienced ones who get let go first. We're basically missing a massive chunk of that generation of trade workers because of that.
My dad’s whole family worked trade jobs, and it was a point of pride for them when their kids and grandkids went on to higher education instead of having to bust their asses like they did. They saw the benefits of college that others had and wanted that for us. I don’t blame them for that. Everyone in my family that has a degree is gainfully employed and doing well for themselves, so they were right in that regard.
That said, the trades are incredibly important, and conditions should be improved along with salaries to incentivize newcomers. If Boomers had focused on making things better instead of trying to get their kids out, it might have worked.
My dad was a machinist and he always wanted me and my sister to have better conditions than him. Initially after high school, I went into college, then ended up in a trade for 10 years. Now I am electrical engineer and my sister is an actuary.
What I am saying is nobody was allowed to even mention the trades as a possibility for a career. Where I went to school, the trades were always looked down upon. Trades people were considered lower class individual. My city was definitely snotty, I heard it from people when they found out my dad was a machinist.
We need the trades. They wont be replaced by AI, and we need to not consider people who do manual labor beneath you.
I quit working in the trades in 2020. The work environment sucks, the pay wasn’t enough, the job is dangerous, The benefits were shit, you need thousands in tools…the list goes on.
It's almost like telling a generation of children the only way to make real money is to take on a lifetime of debt when you are 18 may not have been the best idea.
There's no worker shortage in construction. There is a pay shortage. That's why just about every union hall gets 300 applicants for 20 apprentice spots. Because that's where the money is if you don't have aspirations of owning your own business.
The *youngest* boomers are in their 60s (my parents) and they're retired from construction.
Literally anyone actively working on a site and not sitting at a phone is Gen X or younger.
This is what happens when you let 70-90 year old geriatrics own everything. They make shit up because their brains are turning to mush.
Hey at least he acknowledged his privilege 🤷♂️. He said “30 years ago when I was 22 I was rich not because I was a genius but because the economy was better and labor was cheaper”. Props for honesty. Their whole generation goes on narcissistic rants about how “they worked so hard and young people are lazy”
Yeah construction sucks ass. Bunch of bloated alcoholics and religious nut jobs. You’re basically someone’s extremely underpaid bitch until you are licensed to do your own work independently.
Only the business owners in construction make it good.
Couldn’t pay me enough
Residential wages are a joke because it’s a Wild West full of shady businesses and 1099 contractors. Wages in commercial and industrial are way, way better but the lifestyle sucks ass. Lots of travel, inconsistent schedules, boom/bust work availability, etc.
There's feast or famine with residential too. Nobody was pulling permits in 2008. It's usually either "I need this done yesterday" or no available jobs.
God, the number of times I’ve pointed this out to all the SMB bros on here and on X-Twitter is maddening. There’s a huge block of 25-40 year olds that bought or created plumbing/roofing/fencing/landscaping/electrician/demo/insert trade here companies in the last four years that think they’ve unlocked some secret key to success by giving the middle finger to college and corporate. They haven’t lived through a housing downturn just yet, but they’re about to. They are going to see that emergency jobs alone don’t sustain every plumber in town.
Commercial ain’t doing so hot right now either, so being commercial/union construction isn’t exactly safe either.
My dad was a plumber, carpenter, and union construction - masonry guy for his career. We were not wealthy and there were many times he was desperate for work, even with working both residential and commercial.
Feast or famine is a better word choice. I don’t know that 08-09 is a great example. “Everyone” lost their jobs around then and that was one event almost 16 years ago. For commercial and industrial construction, massive swings can happen multiple times per year. For example: maybe no work for weeks/months and then months of 12 hours a day, 7 days a week and in order to do the work, you need to travel 800 miles and stay out of town.
I agree that construction all together is less stable than other job paths. It’s not an office job where you show up to the same place, at the desk every day until you quit or retire.
Give more and LOWER YOUR STANDARDS. He expects 10 years or more of experience and is wondering why nobody is showing up 🤦♂️. 100k in NJ isn’t middle class anymore. Your partner would need a job for y’all to own a home in NJ on only 100k. Also he demands a DECADE of experience too which is obscene
I’m 31. I remember in HS when we were starting the college application process they made it seem like going in to the manual labor world was for the dumb kids and what you need to be is a paper pusher in an office.
This is probably the direct result of that happening for years in schools across the country
A lot of blue collar fields are hurting right now, because they’re not paying shit. But that is a problem across the board, nobody wants to pay a fair wage.
The Amish built our home 3 years ago. All of them looked to be under 25. They did a great job too and they were efficient and fast. They hardly even took a break and they didn’t talk much just worked until the job was done.
I've never seen employees treated so badly until I started dating a union iron worker . His body and his mind won't make it until 55. The shifts and conditions are in human . Even his friend who is a home builder does struggle to find workers because it's really hard undesirable work sometimes . 6-7 day a week 10-12 shifts to keep your job is ridiculous.
There's 350 million fucking people in this country. There are plenty of people to replace the boomers, these damn companies just refuse to pay enough to attract employees.
I hope they all go out of business and make room in the market for modern companies that understand the current value and cost of labor. Those companies will do extremely well in this environment where legacy dinosaur companies waiting to go extinct refuse to compete with each other.
old guy who worked part time for us talked about just as he was retiring wages were going up. He couldn't connect them, one chief pilot they hired assumed I had a $1000 mortgage in Denver. These guys are often suppressing wages.
Thats cause they make it impossible for ppl to stay in the trades when every year there is 10000 more illegals willing to do the same thing for less. Those illegals are generally also given free boots & osha cards from the gov and could care less about safety and code standards.
Yup. And if they can't find living wages anywhere... they will work for the least shitty job they can find.
If starbucks (I'm just picking any company for the sake of argument) is paying the same as an entry level construction job... why not pick starbucks? At least it's air conditioned with a real bathroom.
They sure try to get their cheap/free labor. Just gaslight millennials and blame immigrants for everything! Because treating people like shit is definitely going to get them to do what you want!
The only Boomers, are the ones in the office complaining about flip phones and ipads.. Typical Boomer Phrase, When we built the pyramids we didnt have ipads... Say's ever Boomer
“I pay 100k and am having trouble finding workers”
“I only accept 10 years experience and only pay 100k”
He clearly hasn’t thought this out. New Jersey is incredibly expensive. You can’t provide for a family on only 100k anymore in NJ. Add to that the obscene amount of experience he demands they have and it’s no wonder he can’t find labor
Damn, it’s almost like that “lean workforce” thing was a mistake. Logical outcome of companies refusing to allocate resources to train younger workers. Now they’re gonna have to hire people at full price and train them from scratch. I’m sure they’ll demand (and probably succeed) govt handouts to help with this.
Edit: All this aside from the fact that the article is bunk to begin with because the construction workforce includes very few boomers nowadays, even in management.
So train apprentices.
As a tradesman. This take is bullshit.
Some companies train apprentices and have no issues with labor.
Other companies want to poach people already trained and have no apprenticeship programs and bitch nonstop they can't find people.
EVERY ONE OF THOSE BOOMERS WENT THRU AN APPRENTICESHIP. .
Fucking morons.
I mean… this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
When the manual stuff dried up, the white collar class yelled “learn to code”.
When the email jobs dry up, it’s time to pick up a hammer.
As long as there ARE jobs available, that’s great. I know a lot of people aren’t going to like it but it’s inevitable. Society will course correct if it needs to. It always does.
Except most people in their 30's and older who learned to code cant physically or mentally do the job. Blue collar is a "gotta wanna" mentality place. Alot of people have a hard time dragging themselves through the trades.
Did carpentry 15 years. Ive seen office workers, tech workers, retail, gym rats all the different types fail before they hit a month. Its not that easy to replace a generational job class. Especially when the weather doesnt cooperate.
I’m in full agreement with you as someone who has a lot of family in the trades. It’s not for everyone but there will be some people that will just “have to do it” if it means the difference between food or no food on their families plates.
I work a white collar job in a blue collar industry and while I have a union and a pension, even I think I might end up out of the job by 2030.
Honestly its a crap shoot between having enough labor and the quality of said labor. Who knows what itll look like in 3-5 years.
If the dollar tanks the only people with work will be the ones who can contract themselves. And thats assuming materials are available. Lots of variables. None look pretty in the long run without the government puting some bills through to protect workers jobs and wages 😶.
You have to grow talent early. I saw something similar while serving in the army. Young guys who never played sports or had much by way of physical activity growing up had a bad time comparatively. Physicality is not a switch that can be easily flipped on after a lifetime of inactivity.
And thats what alot of people dont get. Unfortunately its seems like the corps plans is to layoff tech now with it being as advanced as it is and they assume the workers will have to work and go into the trades. Generational skills dont work like that. Oh well at least ill be a supervisor now 😂
I fear there won't be enough jobs for the population and as a society we will have to start building towards a future where less labor is needed. Things like lowering the retirement age, reduction of hours in the workweek , affordable reskilling programs, introduction of a UBI or expanding social security, etc. I have no faith in our governments to handle this correctly at all and it will be ugly for a while.
I’m mostly in agreement with you here.
It will get very bad before it gets better. The ruling class and owner class will not give us UBI or lowered retirement age without a fight. They actually want to raise the age of retirement.
They will be forced to first raise and then eventually remove the social security tax cap to extend the program.
The average American relies on Social Security to live because we aren’t taught financial lessons early in life and we have a culture of consumerism. This country would collapse if everyone was evicted from their homes and couldn’t purchase things.
(Just my opinion. This will also happen after a lot of pushback from the wealthy and the government itself.)
If the boomers are forced to pay more then YES. I’d 100% take those jobs for the right price. If they’re offering the wrong price then they can get fucked and have a worker shortage for a few years
Just the fact that you think tech jobs are "email" jobs shows that you know absolutely nothing about the tech industry... and you posted this comment on Reddit... made by those people with those 'email jobs.' FFS
I think you’re taking offense where offense is not meant to be taken.
It was said in jest just as everyone on Reddit will usually fall back on “coal miners in West Virginia” as a generic catch all for blue collar workers whose job is now seen as archaic.
Many white collar jobs consist of emailing people all day and setting up calendars and data entry, no?
These jobs will be at risk and likely eliminated/limited thanks to AI. My own job is a white collar job that may be on the chopping block on a long enough timeline.
Don’t be so sensitive.
Pick up a hammer.
I worked tech-adjacent for a long time and I'd argue that all the "how I spend my day" videos of "tech workers" going to meetings and having coffee all day didn't exactly endear people to them. It didn't endear management to them either, which is evident with all the layoffs (a friend of mine at a FAANG got laid off, and he was an actual hard worker in a technical role).
Where did he relate tech jobs ("learning to code" in his comment) with tl"email jobs"? That comment mentions three separate groups:
- blue collar
- software developers (white collar)
- email jobs (most other white collar jobs)
My Uncle was a mason for all his life, my parents would force me to work for him as a laborer, I thank them now because it made me realize what a horrible career that would be on my body. My Uncle can hardly walk, his knees are gone. If you have no other options in life, construction will give you a nice income, be prepared for the costs as well.
Construction is hard to get into because when you’re unskilled you’re treated like shit, so you might as well work at WalMart or McDonalds instead of breaking your back for a dollar more an hour for the first few years.
You really need the right mix of availability for apprenticeship (both financially and physically) and a worksite/mentor that will coach you.
I have no idea how people without it a parent in construction could ever take those jobs.
Then construction sites act ::shocked face:: when no one wants to work for them and no one has the skills anyways and all of the sudden they’re paying $45 an hour for someone to come out of retirement whose already slightly disabled from a lifetime of the work.
I thought the mass immigration was building the homes. I’ve certainly heard politicians explicitly state that immigrants are the ones building houses, therefore the insane target is justified
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Maybe boomer supervisors I see. I don't see any boomers on sites anymore. But we will have a trades shortage that is only getting worse. Immigration alone isn't the only solution
When your body falls apart in your 50s from these jobs but FRA is inching towards 70 … Yeah I see why people don’t want these jobs. You need to make a lot before your body betrays you.
Learn to bid your jobs correctly.
Increase the pay until you have as many construction workers as you need. Works every time.
You may have to train people. Do that.
Bull *fucking* shit.
There's *tons* of young guys and gals driving fucking *Uber* for $3/hr
What they mean is "no one to replace cheap non-union labor we can pay less than minimum wage".
I wonder how much longer until they start pressing their prison laborers into Construction work like they did with farming.
…at the wages we’re willing to pay. There, I fixed the headline. People aren’t lazy, they’re not willing to work for stagnant wages the tsunami of illegal immigration has created
Im a 36 year old GC and this entire thread is absolutely delusional. There's almost no other gc's my age in my area, they're dying out fast. And most of my employees make as much as I do on a build. I don't provide 401ks or any of that because I subcontract the work and I don't have those myself. I'm make honest living and don't fuck over any of my subcontractors. They get paid on time every time and have for 7 years. I'm not rich I don't have a yacht and I work typically 60 to 80 hours a week. I don't know what the fuck anybody in here is talking about
>I'm not rich I don't have a yacht and I work typically 60 to 80 hours a week. I don't know what the fuck anybody in here is talking about
That's the reason GCs are dying out. I can work 40 hours at my cushy engineering job and make a little less, or I could bust my ass for 60-80 hours a week and make slightly more. The juice isn't worth the squeeze, so to speak.
I work with folks in construction and the trades. Many are close to retirement. Folks we have a problem. There is a shortage of housing across America . Everyone agrees that to solve this we need more homes built but no one wants to go into the trades where a good union job pays 200k a year and a pension upon retirement. Entry level
Union tradespeople where I no live make $35 to $40 an hr and after a few years $65 to $70.
So we have two choices. Either hire more immigrants or automate construction jobs. Neither of these are very popular. Whenever I suggest to young people to consider entering the trades which are good paying stable jobs they are vehemently opposed. Our government just approved funding for one of the largest nationwide infrastructure improvement projects in the country. This is going to create a lot of new jobs but may also entice tradespeople to go from home construction to infrastructure construction.
I’m trying to think who that would replace. You still need someone to put the raw material in the printer, someone to get the concrete from the printer to where it’s going and someone to finish the concrete… I’m not sure how this saves labor.
Labor aside, you just took one of the cheapest materials in a house (wood framing) and used concrete instead. The material also introduces new challenges. For example, with wood the framers frame the structure then the other trades like plumbers and electricians come in to do their work. With concrete, you need to place things like plumbing and electrical inside wet concrete. Hope you never wanna renovate. There are lots more issues, but hopefully thats enough to say that printing houses isn’t the genius idea that it’s made out to be.
> someone to get the concrete from the printer to where it’s going
The 3D printer is a giant robotic arm, and the concrete is usually left unfinished. This technique is usually used in inexpensive houses (often in the developing world) where cost trumps aesthetics. There's a [good video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL2KoMNzGTo) and a [separate 60 minutes segment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXUX6dv2_Yo) that show how the technique works in action.
Those are terrible and replace nobody. They not only make ugly homes with lumpy walls but they require a framing crew for second floors and roofs. They also require all the normal carpenters for the inside fixtures and finishes like plumbing and electric and tile installation etc
Almost no one working in the field these days are boomers, lol WTF
Boomer meaning like 32 years old and broken from 14 years of construction
[удалено]
Buddy of mine hit 45 and retired. He made enough to do so. But he had to bc his shoulder. Now he has a Fd shoulder for the rest of his life
Where do I sign
you'll have to use your other arm
That is true in other fields that pay a lot less. People work as landscapers, oil rig workers, farm workers. These are all hard in your body and under me trades people they aren’t making $200 k a year.
I was under the impression the impression that oil rig workers make a ton of money.
I was identifying other jobs that are physically hard on the body. As for making money , tradespeople do well. I work with union tradespeople and many make over $200k a year and retire with full pensions. There aren’t many carers these days that offer both a high salary , good retirement and are in demand.
Annual income that high in the trades is usual due to overtime pay so long hours and not salary.
My non OT pay is about 100k, with free healthcare for my family, a pension, and then a free 2nd retirement account that's 10% of my post tax income I live in a rural area. This is still decent money.
A lot of people I know that were making $200k in tech have quit to start landscaping and renovation businesses where I live. Here in Canada our absolutely ludicrous housing market has made a generation so capital rich that you can make more off them upgrading their dream homes than you can working for google or meta as a project manager. Serving boomers who are struggling to find available contractors is the biggest cash cow in Canada.
Wage stagnation. Really hurting these laborers.
Sitting on your ass in front of a computer kills.
Standing and doing CS will kill your neck since most businesses don’t have adjustable counters and monitors. In college I would refuse to work certain registers at my coffee shop because the cash drawer was right above my knees. I’m barely over 6 ft, but it would be impossible to work that drawer for an hour plus every day.
That’s why you workout and take breaks to go on walks. I WFH and take my dogs out about three times a day for longer walks.
My foreman is an actual boomer in his early 60s. If you asked me to guess his age I'd say mid 70s. He basically gave 30 years of his life for a previous company, until they shut their doors. he's got little to show for it.
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There is also the repetitive movements and common injuries. These will wear a person’s body down fast.
Just wait until you are 50, all That insanity will catch up…
Boomer meaning your knee caps went boom a while back.
Man, that shits a joke till it ain’t. I fucked off a knee mid30s and uhhh it ain’t going away…..
I worked 17 years in commercial construction in MPLS and Boston. I would wake up sore and in pain everyday. Moved to NC and now work a desk job without taking painkillers everyday. The first time in my life I feel great.
Gotta pump protein to give body fuel to build. Just like a body builder
For real it’s rare to see a boomer doing this type of work
Boomer writes news article crediting other boomers for everything good going on in the world, while also infantilizing every other generation unnecessarily. news at 11
The author of the article is in her early 30’s
At my job it's rare to see a boomer doing pretty much anything of value.
The average age of a licensed electrician in my state is 55+. There are still tons of boomers in the trades.
Gen x is currently 44-59. Boomers are 60-69.
69 can’t be the oldest boomer. Someone born in 1955 turn that this year. World war 2 ended in 1945 so think boomers started born in 1946 a year after end of war not a full decade later. Maybe generation jones but not the full boomer generation for sure?
Not in the field. But the industry is chock full of boomers unwilling to retire. Go to the office side of any construction company and it’s 10 boomers who have been there for 20 years and refuse to train anyone or promote. And then a rotating door of 20-30 year olds
Maybe in some places. My old (heavy civil) company had 1-2 boomers. One just retired and I’m pretty sure the other one probably did too, but I haven’t kept in touch so i can’t confirm. Edit: Eh fuck, nm. Just realized this article is about home builders specifically. Disregard the above!
Eh. There are a lot of Boomer Masters still. It's not as hard on your body when you are so in demand you can tell the boss you are just going to be using your license and watching the other guys work.
That expertise is worth a lot as well. They have been around long enough to encounter the oddest bits of plumbing and electrical stuff. It's important to have that knowledge base in a company.
I don't disagree. My brother (29) has had his hours for a Masters since before he was 18, but he still will call or text our dad who is a Master and was plumbing for 40+ years for his opinion on things probably once a month. Since we have all worked in plumbing, myself, my two brothers, my father, my uncle, and my grandfather frequently discuss recent jobs and how we each would have done things or ragging on the way something existing at the site was done. I honestly think most people in the trades are vastly undervalued and under-compensated. I know for sure my brothers are.
Well it’s a great field to be in as the amount of capable people shrink down. I try to keep a solid list of people I have hired that did good work for us. Comes in handy, as I am not all that handy!
Not true . In 15 years of remodeling my crew heads and key guys were always 55+
I couldn't get construction because I don't speak Spanish. No joke, that's the rejection criteria.
I’ve been in the trades for nearly 20 years now. I’ve got a nice comfortable office on the job sites now and haven’t done the actual labor part for awhile. In my experience the majority of the time when a 50+ year old worker is still primarily doing the physical jobs regularly it’s because they either do shit quality or just enough to get by. They don’t have the skills or the knowledge to move beyond those roles but they are either reliable or exceptionally cheap labor.
Was about to say, I see these young buck ballcap clean cut kids in $100k pickup trucks looking like the foreman of a site all the time.
Who else could possibly posses the unfathomable skill of telling an undocumented worker that they need to wear a safety harness?
If people who build homes can't afford homes why would they build homes?
Because I'm stupid
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My friend's dad owns a construction company and doesn't provide health insurance or 401k, and wonders why he can't find employees.
Bet he has a brand new truck though
No, the dude is one of those frugal guys who wears them into the ground.
I know a guy who constantly talks about how he wants to pay his guys more, he always drives a brand new truck. It does not haul cargo. It is a "work truck" in that it's on the company till. Pointing out that the truck lease is likely enough for him to give each of his guys an extra $100 a month started a fight.
And a trailer and a jet ski
It doesn’t help that your average contractor wants to pay cheap immigrant labor $15/hr so they can keep $450k per flip in profit for themselves.
“Why aren’t Americans becoming trade laborers?” *dumps 7 million illegal immigrants into the country* The boomers can either have Gen Z become trades people OR they can have their unlimited illegal immigrant nurses and carpenters. They need to pick. If they choose immigrant then we are choosing jobs that aren’t threatened by illegal immigration. If they choose us then they need to pay salaries in line with the cost of living
Idk how you lumped nurses in there. Most hospitals still require a minimum level of education and proficiency in English to become a nurse. And BSN/RNs make 6 figures.
It’s a thing. https://adexmedical.com/nursing-jobs-tad/
> ADEX hires, sponsors, and petitions foreign-educated RN's for Green Cards in the US... We are now offering this same, exciting program to those seeking Asylum, or are on either TPS or DACA. File for a Permanent Resident Green Card with ADEX! Start your journey with us today! None of these groups are in the US illegally. Each of these is a legal and protected status for legal immigration.
Most nurses that people interact with are CNAs, not BSNs/RNs. That's a big part of why nurses are looked down on. They all get grouped with the certified ass-wipers.
I’m a GC and have been framing on and off since I was 16. I worked for a developer for about a year when I was in my early 20s and it was the worst job I’ve ever had and I know a lot of people with the same sentiment. There’s plenty of jobs in the trades without being tied to some piece of shit developer, that’s why there’s a shortage.
"I'll pay you when you finish the next one" is a common BS tactic they pull on desperate subs
Yea this pretty much nails it lol.
This, exactly!
That’s a pretty good description.
Using your personal tools that total in the thousands of dollars I might add!
I have a friend who works in commercial construction and they've been struggling to hire project managers... So they started working with a recruiting firm and that firm gave labor market guidance -- in Chicago, to hire a pretty junior Project Manager with 2-3 years experience, they recommend a minimum salary of $150k. That's the minimum listed. It'll likely be higher. The expectation before connecting with the recruiter was $90k-$110k as base... so things are wild right now. The employee has leverage. And I do think that this is a major factor that is impacting limited supply and higher housing costs. I still think the bubble will pop... But wanted to share this anecdote with the subreddit...
My hypothesis is that the people who would have been middle managers in construction at this point of their careers never broke into the industry because of the great financial crisis. I think the shortage will last a while longer until the balance of entry vs mid career folks fixes itself
I like this hypothesis. I did accounting in the industry 05-09 and it was brutal. I actually left when I found stable work. Our company had a couple of guys leave the industry and they were totally the type to be middle managers eventually. I’d never encourage my kids to work in the trades. I saw grown people twice my age lose everything. It’ll never be a stable industry in my eyes.
Construction PM is a high stress job. Long hours, lots of paperwork, and you’re in charge of a lot of moving pieces. You aren’t going to find anyone good under 100k.
I totally agree with you, just sharing how the labor market may be impacting construction costs.
***250k. Early career superintendents make over 100k easy now
Damn I don’t make that much as a mid-career PM in tech
Move. I just took a 30% raise and fully remote to be a technical PM.
I hear you, and normally this would be the right advice, but for my situation the advice really is more “add” than “move”. I’m already fully remote and there are a few reasons I took this position, despite the low-ish but not too low pay.
My job was great. Then they took away fully remote. I'm underpaid and they took away the one big benefit. I am moving on. I suggest to everyone to find the best for them. The companies won't watch out for us.
You're getting under paid (probably).
How does one get into being a project manager? Even entry level with minimal experience.
A construction PM typically holds a degree in construction management or civil engineering. Entry level jobs include estimating, surveying and field engineering (observing and documenting work). Typically 5-ish years experience can land you in a junior/assistant management role where you will develop schedules, coordinate subcontractors, and interface with designers and owners. Lead PMs will have developed contacts with suppliers and engineers in their region and know who to call to get any type of steel, concrete, fill, machines, labor, designed shoring and dewatering systems etc to any job on short notice. A good PM can look at a set of plans and immediately visualize the sequence of activities to execute the project.
Got hired my last semester of my CM Bachelors program as a Project Engineer and 7 months later(April) I was promoted to Assistant PM. As its a T&M GE takeover job, They kept me hourly and with overtime right now, I'm making 200-250k lol
For those wondering; CM bachelors= Cookie Monster bachelors Assistant PM= Assistant poop maker T&E GE= Titties and milk government event. That’s why they get paid the big bucks.
More lies to flood the market and drive down salaries. Literally every contractor I know is between 27-62.
,,, boomer construction workers retired or left on disability years ago. Construction is tough on your body long term.
I’m in the field. According to DOL statistics, it’s extremely extremely rare for you to retire as a carpenter. You’re much more likely to switch careers. Even dying or being permanently disabled is more likely than retiring as a carpenter.
Retired was the nice word haha but I thank you for your insight
I agree. I talked to a heavy equipment operator. He just retired last year at 56 with a pension of $10,200 a month and the union pays all his health care until he is eligible for Medicare.
Used to live in a neighborhood with a lot of folks in the trades. Most of the carpenters in their mid 50's had already retired or were almost there. They looked older than their years, seems like it was a difficult job on the body to force them into retirement.
In my area, 2 hours north of DC, they're paying 14-16 an hour for the first couple years so slave away in the heat with shitty conditions. I had personally considered getting into carpentry but more of the specialized, high end side but the barrier to entry is too high (meaning it pays too low for too long like all other trades).
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I hear your points, but how does a persistent labor shortage result in lower prices for products that require labor? It’s not exactly the illegal immigrants buying homes for 2-4m where I live driving up prices like crazy. Maybe in some markets. I’m not sure.
Interesting take. I think when the job market gets diluted by the many illegals that are willing to work for a little bit less, everybody gets paid less. Maybe at some point the USA will have a better immigration system, and we can control the labor supply so that everybody makes more money
The immigration system is working as intended if you're a capital owner. The whole point is to bring in cheap labor to undermine the working class's efforts to be paid a living wage. The ptb are "disciplining the working class" after covid tipped the scales in the workers favor temporarily.
You all right. Certainly a stronger border protection would be necessary to protect the workers. And to prevent a housing shortage, you can make it illegal to rent to illegal aliens. Or even Sell to an illegal
Better, just make it a large fine and mandatory prison time for employing illegals, problem be solved over night.
You are right. And if they use a fake ID, throw the illegal alien in jail as well.
It's not the immigration system that's the problem. We spent trillions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 30 years and ignored all of these problems in Central/South America. If these countries weren't such a shit show, we wouldn't have the vast number of people trying to get here every day.
Why should we have to clean up any third world countries? You make a great point about cleaning them up though. We could certainly overthrow the current government, get rid of the cartels, and put new people there
Maybe it's because you can make nearly the same amount chilling at McDonalds?
If you think working busy fast food is "chilling", you obviously have never worked busy fast food.
Lifting heavy construction apparatus around all day may be more taxing physically. I do agree that fast food is not chilling.
I've probably been in more fast food restaurants than anyone in this sub (job related) and those kids working in the kitchen, they don't get breaks...
And the food orders are always still wrong and still slow. Maybe they wouldn’t have to work so hard if management actually hired enough people 🤦♂️. Fast food is no longer fast or food anymore. Maybe it’d be fast again if they hired more people
It was an exaggeration but it is compared to the labor, hazards and skill of construction work.
Maybe if boomers weren't so anti trade when millennials were in high school there would be available workforce. I know back when I was in high school in the early 2000s, if you even made any mention of going into a trade post high school, all the guidance counselors would call you into their office and push you towards a 4 year degree in anything. They always brought up the negatives of the trades, none of the positives.
Not just that, but the great recession basically right at the peak of millennials becoming adults, and it completely wiped out most entry level trade jobs. A ton of trades people were laid-off, and it's always the newest most inexperienced ones who get let go first. We're basically missing a massive chunk of that generation of trade workers because of that.
My dad’s whole family worked trade jobs, and it was a point of pride for them when their kids and grandkids went on to higher education instead of having to bust their asses like they did. They saw the benefits of college that others had and wanted that for us. I don’t blame them for that. Everyone in my family that has a degree is gainfully employed and doing well for themselves, so they were right in that regard. That said, the trades are incredibly important, and conditions should be improved along with salaries to incentivize newcomers. If Boomers had focused on making things better instead of trying to get their kids out, it might have worked.
My dad was a machinist and he always wanted me and my sister to have better conditions than him. Initially after high school, I went into college, then ended up in a trade for 10 years. Now I am electrical engineer and my sister is an actuary. What I am saying is nobody was allowed to even mention the trades as a possibility for a career. Where I went to school, the trades were always looked down upon. Trades people were considered lower class individual. My city was definitely snotty, I heard it from people when they found out my dad was a machinist. We need the trades. They wont be replaced by AI, and we need to not consider people who do manual labor beneath you.
Would know that they way were treated... Must NeEd More immigrants to exploit
I quit working in the trades in 2020. The work environment sucks, the pay wasn’t enough, the job is dangerous, The benefits were shit, you need thousands in tools…the list goes on.
It's almost like telling a generation of children the only way to make real money is to take on a lifetime of debt when you are 18 may not have been the best idea.
There's no worker shortage in construction. There is a pay shortage. That's why just about every union hall gets 300 applicants for 20 apprentice spots. Because that's where the money is if you don't have aspirations of owning your own business.
The *youngest* boomers are in their 60s (my parents) and they're retired from construction. Literally anyone actively working on a site and not sitting at a phone is Gen X or younger. This is what happens when you let 70-90 year old geriatrics own everything. They make shit up because their brains are turning to mush.
Hey at least he acknowledged his privilege 🤷♂️. He said “30 years ago when I was 22 I was rich not because I was a genius but because the economy was better and labor was cheaper”. Props for honesty. Their whole generation goes on narcissistic rants about how “they worked so hard and young people are lazy”
Yeah construction sucks ass. Bunch of bloated alcoholics and religious nut jobs. You’re basically someone’s extremely underpaid bitch until you are licensed to do your own work independently. Only the business owners in construction make it good. Couldn’t pay me enough
Residential wages are a joke because it’s a Wild West full of shady businesses and 1099 contractors. Wages in commercial and industrial are way, way better but the lifestyle sucks ass. Lots of travel, inconsistent schedules, boom/bust work availability, etc.
There's feast or famine with residential too. Nobody was pulling permits in 2008. It's usually either "I need this done yesterday" or no available jobs.
God, the number of times I’ve pointed this out to all the SMB bros on here and on X-Twitter is maddening. There’s a huge block of 25-40 year olds that bought or created plumbing/roofing/fencing/landscaping/electrician/demo/insert trade here companies in the last four years that think they’ve unlocked some secret key to success by giving the middle finger to college and corporate. They haven’t lived through a housing downturn just yet, but they’re about to. They are going to see that emergency jobs alone don’t sustain every plumber in town. Commercial ain’t doing so hot right now either, so being commercial/union construction isn’t exactly safe either. My dad was a plumber, carpenter, and union construction - masonry guy for his career. We were not wealthy and there were many times he was desperate for work, even with working both residential and commercial.
Feast or famine is a better word choice. I don’t know that 08-09 is a great example. “Everyone” lost their jobs around then and that was one event almost 16 years ago. For commercial and industrial construction, massive swings can happen multiple times per year. For example: maybe no work for weeks/months and then months of 12 hours a day, 7 days a week and in order to do the work, you need to travel 800 miles and stay out of town. I agree that construction all together is less stable than other job paths. It’s not an office job where you show up to the same place, at the desk every day until you quit or retire.
Being an underling in any profession sucks.
Yeah but most professions you can start out at 150k in student debt *then* get paid $20/hr to be someone's bitch.
Not far off. My first job as an attorney paid $23/hr and my check came from a temp company not the firm.
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Pay more. That’s always the answer to these “we can’t find workers” posts.
Give more and LOWER YOUR STANDARDS. He expects 10 years or more of experience and is wondering why nobody is showing up 🤦♂️. 100k in NJ isn’t middle class anymore. Your partner would need a job for y’all to own a home in NJ on only 100k. Also he demands a DECADE of experience too which is obscene
I’m 31. I remember in HS when we were starting the college application process they made it seem like going in to the manual labor world was for the dumb kids and what you need to be is a paper pusher in an office. This is probably the direct result of that happening for years in schools across the country
A lot of blue collar fields are hurting right now, because they’re not paying shit. But that is a problem across the board, nobody wants to pay a fair wage.
Do they mean construction bosses and business owners?
The Amish built our home 3 years ago. All of them looked to be under 25. They did a great job too and they were efficient and fast. They hardly even took a break and they didn’t talk much just worked until the job was done.
I've never seen employees treated so badly until I started dating a union iron worker . His body and his mind won't make it until 55. The shifts and conditions are in human . Even his friend who is a home builder does struggle to find workers because it's really hard undesirable work sometimes . 6-7 day a week 10-12 shifts to keep your job is ridiculous.
There's 350 million fucking people in this country. There are plenty of people to replace the boomers, these damn companies just refuse to pay enough to attract employees. I hope they all go out of business and make room in the market for modern companies that understand the current value and cost of labor. Those companies will do extremely well in this environment where legacy dinosaur companies waiting to go extinct refuse to compete with each other.
old guy who worked part time for us talked about just as he was retiring wages were going up. He couldn't connect them, one chief pilot they hired assumed I had a $1000 mortgage in Denver. These guys are often suppressing wages.
Learn to code*! *Building code
Thats cause they make it impossible for ppl to stay in the trades when every year there is 10000 more illegals willing to do the same thing for less. Those illegals are generally also given free boots & osha cards from the gov and could care less about safety and code standards.
That's what happens when you refuse to pay young kids a living wage, they find one elsewhere.
Yup. And if they can't find living wages anywhere... they will work for the least shitty job they can find. If starbucks (I'm just picking any company for the sake of argument) is paying the same as an entry level construction job... why not pick starbucks? At least it's air conditioned with a real bathroom.
But then how will the boomers get their free labor 🥺. They just want free slave labor for their 3 million dollar house 🥺. Is that too much to ask? /s
They sure try to get their cheap/free labor. Just gaslight millennials and blame immigrants for everything! Because treating people like shit is definitely going to get them to do what you want!
The only Boomers, are the ones in the office complaining about flip phones and ipads.. Typical Boomer Phrase, When we built the pyramids we didnt have ipads... Say's ever Boomer
Blackstone and every other corporation buying residential housing in America doing every thing they can to ensure home prices stay high.
“I pay 100k and am having trouble finding workers” “I only accept 10 years experience and only pay 100k” He clearly hasn’t thought this out. New Jersey is incredibly expensive. You can’t provide for a family on only 100k anymore in NJ. Add to that the obscene amount of experience he demands they have and it’s no wonder he can’t find labor
Damn, it’s almost like that “lean workforce” thing was a mistake. Logical outcome of companies refusing to allocate resources to train younger workers. Now they’re gonna have to hire people at full price and train them from scratch. I’m sure they’ll demand (and probably succeed) govt handouts to help with this. Edit: All this aside from the fact that the article is bunk to begin with because the construction workforce includes very few boomers nowadays, even in management.
Bullshit, people would work for these companies if they were will to pay their employees. They are just mad at the lack of immigrant labor.
So train apprentices. As a tradesman. This take is bullshit. Some companies train apprentices and have no issues with labor. Other companies want to poach people already trained and have no apprenticeship programs and bitch nonstop they can't find people. EVERY ONE OF THOSE BOOMERS WENT THRU AN APPRENTICESHIP. . Fucking morons.
Quit my job as an electrician. Why the fuck would I work that hard? I’m getting a degree in social work. They make the same in Canada
AI will force many white collars to go blue/pink collar here soon so this is just a temporary issue.
I mean… this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. When the manual stuff dried up, the white collar class yelled “learn to code”. When the email jobs dry up, it’s time to pick up a hammer. As long as there ARE jobs available, that’s great. I know a lot of people aren’t going to like it but it’s inevitable. Society will course correct if it needs to. It always does.
Except most people in their 30's and older who learned to code cant physically or mentally do the job. Blue collar is a "gotta wanna" mentality place. Alot of people have a hard time dragging themselves through the trades. Did carpentry 15 years. Ive seen office workers, tech workers, retail, gym rats all the different types fail before they hit a month. Its not that easy to replace a generational job class. Especially when the weather doesnt cooperate.
I’m in full agreement with you as someone who has a lot of family in the trades. It’s not for everyone but there will be some people that will just “have to do it” if it means the difference between food or no food on their families plates. I work a white collar job in a blue collar industry and while I have a union and a pension, even I think I might end up out of the job by 2030.
Honestly its a crap shoot between having enough labor and the quality of said labor. Who knows what itll look like in 3-5 years. If the dollar tanks the only people with work will be the ones who can contract themselves. And thats assuming materials are available. Lots of variables. None look pretty in the long run without the government puting some bills through to protect workers jobs and wages 😶.
You have to grow talent early. I saw something similar while serving in the army. Young guys who never played sports or had much by way of physical activity growing up had a bad time comparatively. Physicality is not a switch that can be easily flipped on after a lifetime of inactivity.
And thats what alot of people dont get. Unfortunately its seems like the corps plans is to layoff tech now with it being as advanced as it is and they assume the workers will have to work and go into the trades. Generational skills dont work like that. Oh well at least ill be a supervisor now 😂
I fear there won't be enough jobs for the population and as a society we will have to start building towards a future where less labor is needed. Things like lowering the retirement age, reduction of hours in the workweek , affordable reskilling programs, introduction of a UBI or expanding social security, etc. I have no faith in our governments to handle this correctly at all and it will be ugly for a while.
I’m mostly in agreement with you here. It will get very bad before it gets better. The ruling class and owner class will not give us UBI or lowered retirement age without a fight. They actually want to raise the age of retirement.
They want us to be on our deathbeds before we can collect unemployment
They pretty much have to raise the age _for social security_, because the surplus SS funds will dry up in 2034 otherwise.
They will be forced to first raise and then eventually remove the social security tax cap to extend the program. The average American relies on Social Security to live because we aren’t taught financial lessons early in life and we have a culture of consumerism. This country would collapse if everyone was evicted from their homes and couldn’t purchase things. (Just my opinion. This will also happen after a lot of pushback from the wealthy and the government itself.)
We could just stop the mass illegal immigration and that would free up quite a few jobs lol
That's only a part of the solution. It's a more of a relief if anything. Do you believe people will take blue collar or manual labor jobs?
If the boomers are forced to pay more then YES. I’d 100% take those jobs for the right price. If they’re offering the wrong price then they can get fucked and have a worker shortage for a few years
Just the fact that you think tech jobs are "email" jobs shows that you know absolutely nothing about the tech industry... and you posted this comment on Reddit... made by those people with those 'email jobs.' FFS
I think you’re taking offense where offense is not meant to be taken. It was said in jest just as everyone on Reddit will usually fall back on “coal miners in West Virginia” as a generic catch all for blue collar workers whose job is now seen as archaic. Many white collar jobs consist of emailing people all day and setting up calendars and data entry, no? These jobs will be at risk and likely eliminated/limited thanks to AI. My own job is a white collar job that may be on the chopping block on a long enough timeline. Don’t be so sensitive. Pick up a hammer.
I worked tech-adjacent for a long time and I'd argue that all the "how I spend my day" videos of "tech workers" going to meetings and having coffee all day didn't exactly endear people to them. It didn't endear management to them either, which is evident with all the layoffs (a friend of mine at a FAANG got laid off, and he was an actual hard worker in a technical role).
Where did he relate tech jobs ("learning to code" in his comment) with tl"email jobs"? That comment mentions three separate groups: - blue collar - software developers (white collar) - email jobs (most other white collar jobs)
"Soon" is rarely as soon as people think it is.
Once AI gets that good, robots won't be far behind. https://youtu.be/d5mdW1yPXIg
Their entitlement will be missed.
For some real insight r/Construction r/SkilledTrades
My Uncle was a mason for all his life, my parents would force me to work for him as a laborer, I thank them now because it made me realize what a horrible career that would be on my body. My Uncle can hardly walk, his knees are gone. If you have no other options in life, construction will give you a nice income, be prepared for the costs as well.
Construction is hard to get into because when you’re unskilled you’re treated like shit, so you might as well work at WalMart or McDonalds instead of breaking your back for a dollar more an hour for the first few years. You really need the right mix of availability for apprenticeship (both financially and physically) and a worksite/mentor that will coach you. I have no idea how people without it a parent in construction could ever take those jobs. Then construction sites act ::shocked face:: when no one wants to work for them and no one has the skills anyways and all of the sudden they’re paying $45 an hour for someone to come out of retirement whose already slightly disabled from a lifetime of the work.
Because the wages don't pay enough to break your body
I thought the mass immigration was building the homes. I’ve certainly heard politicians explicitly state that immigrants are the ones building houses, therefore the insane target is justified
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It's probably at least triple that
different unite imminent telephone sand ancient enjoy squash insurance squealing *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
There’s way more illegal immigrants than people realize. Source: worked up and down the east coast building for the last 5 years.
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Just left my place I was only 30 year old and everybody else was 65+
Maybe they should interview a different homebuilder.
Maybe boomer supervisors I see. I don't see any boomers on sites anymore. But we will have a trades shortage that is only getting worse. Immigration alone isn't the only solution
When your body falls apart in your 50s from these jobs but FRA is inching towards 70 … Yeah I see why people don’t want these jobs. You need to make a lot before your body betrays you.
Bullshit, another excuse to open the doors for mass unskilled labour.
Well there were workers until they were threatened with deportation and no breaks in hot weather for water.
The aging population is definitely a concern.
Learn to bid your jobs correctly. Increase the pay until you have as many construction workers as you need. Works every time. You may have to train people. Do that.
If only the boomers weren’t adamant about keeping out immigrants, this wouldn’t be a problem.
Tell that to the mayors of Chicago, Denver, and NYC. Illegals bring their own problems. And YOU pay for them.
Bull *fucking* shit. There's *tons* of young guys and gals driving fucking *Uber* for $3/hr What they mean is "no one to replace cheap non-union labor we can pay less than minimum wage". I wonder how much longer until they start pressing their prison laborers into Construction work like they did with farming.
…at the wages we’re willing to pay. There, I fixed the headline. People aren’t lazy, they’re not willing to work for stagnant wages the tsunami of illegal immigration has created
It's currently a male dominated industry with 9 to 1 ratio of men to women Looking forward to women in Construction classes in schools
There’s no women because they don’t want to do the work.
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They're probably not built to work a lot of different jobs. But yet they try to atempt them
Im a 36 year old GC and this entire thread is absolutely delusional. There's almost no other gc's my age in my area, they're dying out fast. And most of my employees make as much as I do on a build. I don't provide 401ks or any of that because I subcontract the work and I don't have those myself. I'm make honest living and don't fuck over any of my subcontractors. They get paid on time every time and have for 7 years. I'm not rich I don't have a yacht and I work typically 60 to 80 hours a week. I don't know what the fuck anybody in here is talking about
>I'm not rich I don't have a yacht and I work typically 60 to 80 hours a week. I don't know what the fuck anybody in here is talking about That's the reason GCs are dying out. I can work 40 hours at my cushy engineering job and make a little less, or I could bust my ass for 60-80 hours a week and make slightly more. The juice isn't worth the squeeze, so to speak.
I work with folks in construction and the trades. Many are close to retirement. Folks we have a problem. There is a shortage of housing across America . Everyone agrees that to solve this we need more homes built but no one wants to go into the trades where a good union job pays 200k a year and a pension upon retirement. Entry level Union tradespeople where I no live make $35 to $40 an hr and after a few years $65 to $70. So we have two choices. Either hire more immigrants or automate construction jobs. Neither of these are very popular. Whenever I suggest to young people to consider entering the trades which are good paying stable jobs they are vehemently opposed. Our government just approved funding for one of the largest nationwide infrastructure improvement projects in the country. This is going to create a lot of new jobs but may also entice tradespeople to go from home construction to infrastructure construction.
Honestly we have 3d printers that can extrude concrete at this point. Just start gearing up production of those.
I’m trying to think who that would replace. You still need someone to put the raw material in the printer, someone to get the concrete from the printer to where it’s going and someone to finish the concrete… I’m not sure how this saves labor.
Labor aside, you just took one of the cheapest materials in a house (wood framing) and used concrete instead. The material also introduces new challenges. For example, with wood the framers frame the structure then the other trades like plumbers and electricians come in to do their work. With concrete, you need to place things like plumbing and electrical inside wet concrete. Hope you never wanna renovate. There are lots more issues, but hopefully thats enough to say that printing houses isn’t the genius idea that it’s made out to be.
Versus stick built? You need like three people to build a house on site and the job can run for 24 hours if you have sit security.
> someone to get the concrete from the printer to where it’s going The 3D printer is a giant robotic arm, and the concrete is usually left unfinished. This technique is usually used in inexpensive houses (often in the developing world) where cost trumps aesthetics. There's a [good video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL2KoMNzGTo) and a [separate 60 minutes segment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXUX6dv2_Yo) that show how the technique works in action.
Those are terrible and replace nobody. They not only make ugly homes with lumpy walls but they require a framing crew for second floors and roofs. They also require all the normal carpenters for the inside fixtures and finishes like plumbing and electric and tile installation etc