a friend of mine has a welding company and he can get all the certified welders welding dual shield for less than $20/hr.
My cousin is in charge of a college that teaches welding and has a request from national Ship Building for 2,000 welders and their starting pay for certified welders is $18/hr.
That’s because dual shield is pretty easy stuff compared to other technologies.
PIpeline guys who work out in the field and bring their own rigs to the job (usually a Lincoln machine) get upwards of $30/hour, and then $15 to $20 for rig rental on their rigs.
There’s more than a dozen “certificates” in welding. There’s certificates for process, then position, then some application certs as well. Saying “we’re hiring certified welders” is a pretty loose specification.