Posted on 01/25/2009 4:17:45 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Bad Times Spur a Flight to Jobs Viewed as Safe
By LOUIS UCHITELLE
After years of struggling to get their wages up, the nation’s workers are trying to find jobs that will simply last, at least through the deep recession.
Fearing layoffs, investment bankers at a Merrill Lynch or a Morgan Stanley are joining small Wall Street firms for less pay but with signed employment guarantees. Academics are migrating to community colleges, which are adding teachers as enrollment rises. And in Eastern Wisconsin, workers furloughed from a paper mill they fear will not reopen are training as truck drivers and welders.
“Looking online and in newspapers and talking to my instructors, I’ve decided that trucking and welding stand out as jobs that are available and will continue to be available, and a lot of my friends agree,” said Dan Geneen, who has picked up a truck-driving certificate and is learning welding since he was let go by the paper mill last fall.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping!
I was talking to the owner of the welding supply store here in my town and he said that welders in the area are having a hard time because of the illegals that work for lower wages and don’t have to jump through all of the licensing and regulatory hoops that Americans do.
Picking lettuce my butt.
This is like the book Atlas Shrugged. A death spiral.
You got that right. I was in the merchant marine last year. We went to dry dock and all the workers were illegal Mexicans.
AS traditional jobs become less reliable - and increasingly more difficult to find, watch for the next trend — cash-basis (or barter-basis) cottage industries....
Just wait until some more nuclear power plants start construction. Welders will be in high demand. AND illegals won’t be eligible because of the extensive documentation requirements.
Adaptation is one of the primary components of survival. If your niche dries up, you need to be ready, willing, and able to find a new one or mother nature is going to spank you.
Son just got out of the navy. He did welding on his ship. Now he just got out last month and is working in a bank. I envy him. He has so many choices now: college, open a business, get a welding job.... All because of his military service. He said he hated welding but, you know, it’s something he can always fall back on. Going to have to show him this article!
Son just got out of the navy. He did welding on his ship. Now he just got out last month and is working in a bank. I envy him. He has so many choices now: college, open a business, get a welding job.... All because of his military service. He said he hated welding but, you know, it’s something he can always fall back on. Going to have to show him this article!
OOPS! sorry for the double post! Should have refreshed the screen first!
I have always said that if I wanted to retire in the Keys or the islands, I would learn how to precision weld aluminum and stainless steel. Then I would buy top flight equipment (and spares) and move to my (or) retirement spot.
By the time construction of those plants start, the illegals will be legal.
"Stroke of the pen..."
Welding and HVAC repair are courses of action I’m in the midst of evaluating. The former because there has always been a high demand for welders, the latter because if it comes to it, I could do more work on my home.
You always have to be hedging your position: Nuclear Engineer -> Quant Finance -> Welding or Nuclear Engineering or Quant Finance.
“I have always said that if I wanted to retire in the Keys or the islands,”
Wow...this sounds like me somewhat (I am a Fla. Keys disease sufferer for almost 6 years now). My plan was to learn more about marine diesel engines and the like. I could couple that with computer repair skills and have a mini-dual repair shop :-)! Or, in a best case scenario, just do all of my FPGA design work down there remotely as “distance working” becomes more accepted in the workplace (digital design is my first love career wise). I’m kind of making #2 happen right now and will be doing more with diesel engines soon just for kicks.
I wish the more liberal variety of people in the Keys would realize their islands/land will be worthless soon with the seas rising and life ending there soon. Prophet Gore said so. Where are the chunks of land down in Cudjoe or Sugarloaf for pennies on the dollar?!?!?!?! ;-)
I graduated H.S. in 1987 oil-bust Texas. There were no jobs, so, I joined the military. When I got out of the military in 1991, jobs were plentiful, but I had learned a lesson. One of my primary criteria for deciding on a career was whether a job would be “recession-proof” or not.
I became a RN. And then. I doubled down and moved into critical care. I’m not worried about a recession/depression. I doubt many RN positions will be eliminated nationwide. And. EVEN IF my hospital were to decide to lay off RNs, I’m one of the few in the hospital that can work just about anywhere and take up the slack.
Plus, I started listening to Dave Ramsey 3 yrs ago. My debt load is much smaller than it used to be, and getting smaller by the month.
The last remnants of the Carter Recession taught me valuable lessons for how to live through the Pelosi/Reid/Obama Depression. Who would of thought that awful summer after H.S. with no prospects would have been so enlightening? I can remember a manager at Whataburger telling me that I looked like a good kid, but I was competing with grown men and families for jobs - and I would lose. That’s a powerful lesson.
“Looking online and in newspapers and talking to my instructors, I’ve decided that trucking and welding stand out as jobs that are available and will continue to be available, and a lot of my friends agree,” said Dan Geneen”
...good luck! ....I’m friends with a former O-T-R trucker....he’s having a hard time getting loads that pay good.
....my post master’s son got out of high school in May....he went around to all 9 welding shops in the county asking to be an intern at no pay just so he could learn...nobody could put him on.
.....there’s not much in our area to haul and not much that needs to be welded.
Sorry guys. My husband went to get his welding certification after losing his job he held for 27 years (plant moved to China. Literally)
Welding isn’t doing so well because of all the others moving to that field. Oversaturation.
Closer than we think?
" And if construction jobs go mainly to white males who already dominate the construction trades, many people who need jobs the most — women, minorities, and the poor and long-term unemployed — will be shut out."
Robert Reich
January 22, 2009 
Excuse me? Perhaps you Mr Reich, have not "visited" a construction site in oh, thirty years? Because they are "dominated" by WETBACKS you communist/racist moron.
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