Locomotive Engineer Trainee or Truck Driver:
Starting Salary: $40-45k /yr
College Loans: $0
Job Requirements: Drug Free + Driver's License
Chance of Outsourcing/Insourcing: Very Low due to citizenship reqrments.
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Amen, I think anyone who is exulting over that pay chart for college graduates is being very unrealistic. Anyone who can pass a drug test and a "work keys" test can start today in the warehouse at the factory where I am currently employed less than three miles from my door and start at $24,000.00 working only scheduled hours and that is a four day on four day off schedule (12 hour shifts). Most people work overtime and easily make $30,000.00 or better the first year and this job pays far less than it did five years ago! The pay has actually been cut back! The same person can go into another area of the plant and after two years of OJT can earn $40,000. working the same schedule and can earn $50,000.00 or more with overtime. We just lost a maintenance man who was earning over $45,000.00 without overtime. He found another job with higher pay!! This is in a factory where wages have been slashed far below the level of five years ago and in a relatively low-wage area. I see nothing at all impressive about the starting pay quoted for graduate engineers!
I'm curious where Roberts classifies those kind of jobs. Since neither are "manufacturing" they must be low wage "service" jobs.
Another point I have noticed over the years: It is true that US manufacturing jobs have decreased, but not by the factors that many of these stats show. Going back 30 years, manufacturing plants were mostly totally integrated operations, i.e. they hired full time employees for every function within a given plant from the actual manufacturing process all the way down to support services such as plant and equipment maintenance, security, information technology, transportation and food services, etc. All of those employees were recorded as "manufacturing sector" even if they never got within miles of the actual manufacturing process.
Today, many of those non-core functions are "outsourced" to professional or technical services firms who report into the "services" category. Many of those jobs are highly paid but by the time a guy like Roberts is done spinning the numbers, they come out sounding like berger flipping jobs.