Posted on 11/28/2011 9:40:09 AM PST by SeekAndFind
We hear so much these days about the unemployment figures and the lack of good paying jobs for the disappearing middle class that it’s almost become the new normal. Combined with that, the plaintive cries from the OWS occupiers about the heavy burdens of oppressive college loans for graduates unable to find work have become a regular fixture in political discussions. Which is why it’s odd when we see the Wall Street Journal reporting on employers looking to fill relatively high wage jobs and having little to no success in finding takers.
Ferrie Bailey’s job should be easy: hiring workers amid the worst stretch of unemployment since the Depression.
A recruiter for Union Pacific Corp., she has openings to fill, the kind that sometimes seem to have all but vanished: secure, well-paying jobs with good benefits that don’t require a college degree.
But they require specialized skills—expertise in short supply even with the unemployment rate at 9%. Which is why on a recent morning the recruiter found herself in a hiring hall here anxiously awaiting the arrival of just two people she had invited to interviews, winnowed from an initial group of nearly five dozen applicants. With minutes to go, the folding chairs sat empty. “I don’t think they’re going to show,” Ms. Bailey said, pacing in the basement room.
Moe Lane jumps on this opportunity with a decision to send the kids to electrician’s school.
Or maybe it’ll be plumber’s school. Or welding. Doesn’t really matter: until people don’t have to spend tens of thousands of dollars a year to get poorly educated for white-collar jobs that don’t actually exist, some sort of technical training is looking more and more attractive. We’re always going to need electricians and plumbers, and they can improve their minds on their lunch breaks. Which they’ll get, because we’re always going to need electricians and plumbers.
It’s a valid point which we’ve made here before and always draw criticism for it. I’m not saying there’s no value to a college education. Having the right sheepskin and a willingness to work hard is absolutely a solid course for those with the ability to pursue it. But not everyone can and – increasingly – fewer and fewer are willing to look at lower cost but potentially productive alternate paths.
I’ve told this story before, but it bears repeating. Right in my neighborhood there is the son of one of my neighbors who finished high school several years back and went into an apprenticeship and technical school training program for heating and air conditioning. Within six months of graduating high school he had a secure, full time job which is bringing in some seriously good pay and benefits. Yes, the job involves hard work, finds him coming home covered in dirt and dust, and he frequently has to deal with irate, if not panicking homeowners. But he had no outstanding debt and at the age of 25 was already purchasing his first home. As his father tells it, he got a terrific rate on it, putting down a very substantial down payment.
The point is, there is still blue collar work out there to be done. And unlike many white collar jobs, a lot of it will never be able to be outsourced to other countries, as so often happens to computer programming jobs and others in related fields. Nobody is going to be able to log in to “the cloud” from Brazil and dig a new foundation for your home, wire it up, install the plumbing or put on a new roof. Those jobs will remain here at home.
I would once again suggest taking a look at Matthew B. Crawford’s wonderful book, Shop Class as Soulcraft. In it, he examines what he describes as “the value of work.” He also notes with dismay the decades long trend of high schools abandoning shop class and any other training for skills requiring the use of your hands. When schools began to push everyone to go to a university, they also seemed to scorn and delegitimize the trades, much to our detriment. And now we see jobs which could help rebuild the middle class going empty because we’ve forgotten the value of good old fashioned work.
Great article, thanks for posting!
But:
“Someone still needs to have the money to pay them to do the job.”
Well, guess what. Once having learned and been accredited in a good trade, many of these guys are independents. My sons are (in their 50s) and my oldest grandson should have listened to me and his uncles about this. Homeowners who need the work done - that’s who pays them to do the job. And people always need these things done - plumbing, electrical work, roofing repair, heating and a/c, etc. etc. The need will always be there.
Unless, of course, Americans end up living in cold, dark caves from re-electing the Kenyan King.
While that’s true for the track/comm jobs on the rails, after talking to rail engineers, I’d rather get my engineer’s certs on a RR.
What. A. Cushy. Deal.
I haven’t talked to any rail engineers. What do they say? Is it anything like being a pilot or a truck driver?
So, best to wait on a check from the government to get anything done right? Son, I’ve sold scrap just to make the light bill. You CAN find a way to better yourself without help from the government. Unemployed or not you can pick yourself up!
I don’t work in the oilfield, just live in a community where lots of people do.
What I do, however, is talk with lots of youngsters who haven’t a clue what to do. Guidance counselors have filled their heads with all manner of nonsense about “you MUST get a four year degree!” and so on. I take classes in welding, machining, etc at the local community college and help out there.
Sometimes, I get into these back-and-forth arguments “through” the kids, where I tell the kids something, their parents or counselors counter and the kids tell me... back and forth it can go. Anyway, I tell the kids that there are lots of blue-collar jobs out there for which they can get good training at the local community college that will make them a very sound living and (if they wish) give them skills which they can leverage into opening what are often very lucrative businesses.
When it sometimes comes to a in-person discussion, counselors and parents ask me (often in a demanding voice) “Well, is this what YOU did?”
“No, I got a four year engineering degree, cut a swath through the computer industry and retired at 40 quite comfortably.”
The counselors and parents start shrieking “Liar! You lie! You don’t want our kid(s) to have what you got!”
Then I have to explain to them that a) I was good, but I was good in something where what I did converged with a technology revolution... and b) that sort of thing comes along and makes a bunch of money for a bunch of people maybe... MAYBE only once/generation and it is VERY difficult to predict “the next big thing,” and c) guess what? I unwittingly created the very means that prevents younger people from replicating my success. Now companies can outsource lots of engineering and software jobs off-shore for a dime on the dollar of what I got paid.
While I can’t predict the next “big new thing,” what I can see is that the idiocy of outsourcing manufacturing is coming back to bite US industry in the buttocks... hard and fast. The MBA’s are finally either waking up to this, or they’re being kicked out the door, along with their silly theories. The Boomers, who hold a great proportion of the industrial and manufacturing positions in industry right now, are starting to retire in huge waves.
Example: Cat is bringing some jobs back on-shore. Some of the computer companies are bringing their manufacturing back on-shore for QC as well as intellectual property reasons. I see more and more small machine shops opening and what they’re selling is quality prototyping with *fast* turnaround. That can’t be outsourced.
Then there are industries that are going to starve without new blood... for which supply and demand will make for solid wage increases.
Example: Just in welding alone, there are hundreds of thousands of welders who will be needed in the next five to eight years as the Boomers retire. Even if every welding school filled their classes every month for the next five years... they cannot produce enough welders to fill the US needs for certified welders for structure, pipelines, boilers, etc. I can see that coming from here. Well, welding isn’t glamorous, no one is going to make a movie about welders, but they are essential people and lots of stuff they work on simply cannot be outsourced. Good money, stable and ongoing work, opportunity to create one’s own company... I fail to see how I am peddling a lie to the kids I advise.
I’ve railed against the “nonsense” liberal arts degrees for years, and I saw this day coming where large numbers of kids with nonsensical degrees would be SOL. What I never saw coming, however, was kids graduating with a four-year nonsense degree and a six-figure loan burden. The rate at which tuitions and fees have increased is beyond absurd, and the #1 thing I counsel kids about is debt and personal finances. I cannot believe how ignorant these poor kids are about personal financial planning. It is almost criminal.
Pilots used to be paid as well before the deregulation in the 80’s.
Let’s give an example: Rail engineers are sometimes fired by the railroads for some FRA reason.
The rail engineers have a private unemployment insurance fund that pays them their going rate while they’re out of work. They’re usually re-hired if the reason they were fired was some BS FRA compliance issue (ie, not being drunk on the job. An example of a compliance issue that might get them fired is being on the job in a moving train more than 12 hours in a day). When they get re-hired, they usually get all their back pay from the RR. While they’re “fired,” they can work any other job other than rail engineer. One rail engineer I met worked for UPRR, was “fired” at the time and using his CDL to haul hay off our farm. He told me he was currently “fired,” and when I expressed sympathy, he said “Don’t feel sorry for me, man, I’m going to come out of this quite, quite well.” He would get to keep all the unemployment bennies, get his back pay and he was able to work on the side as well. All because he brought a train that was left stranded outside of town due to another engineer using up all his hours... this guy was qualified to bring the train in, but had reached his weekly hour limit. He thought “Oh, it’s only an hour to bring the train into town, I’ll go out, fetch the other guy and just get it done.”
Well, some really PO’ed black female bureaucrat from the Feds saw this in a log of hours... and brought action against UPRR, and their way of ducking the fine was to fire him.
They have mandatory maximum hours per day and per week. They get paid quite well (like $80K on up, plus bennies and retirement) and there are very few people entering the field. The downside is that they have to deal with lots of bureaucracy (from both the rail companies and the Feds) and sometimes, they have to sit and wait out in the middle of the sagebrush with a broken train. I don’t mean that some mechanical part in the engine is preventing movement, I mean that the rail car couplers have literally broken and the air brakes came on when the brake line pulled apart. Apparently, it happens sometimes on coal trails. The engineer can’t do anything but sit and wait for the maint guys to show up. Sometimes, they’re forced to just sit there in the middle of nowhere for hours...
I don’t get the reference. What is zucotti park?
All I’m saying is I doubt the job is as good as they are claiming, or people would take it.
Are you one of those who believe americans won’t work? Americans will work, but not at slave wages. Companies have the right to decided how much a job is worth to them, but we have the right to laugh in their face if the offer is insulting. Neither you, nor UP, have an inherent right to our labor.
Nice picture of yourself. You’re the one crying because no one will be your wage slave.
I think you're right.
Points to keep in mind when reading articles like this:
First and final offer: $48,000 a year, no relocation assistance and lousy benefits.
Recruiter said I shouldn't pass up this opportunity because I may never get another one. Told her to stop wasting my time and just get to Padjuters immigration paperwork.
This will become one of those jobs that executives will be crying their eyes out about on CNBC.
Lab126 on the other hand which is Amazon's in-house research and development operation approached me about a similar position (presumably for what became the Kindle Fire) and was substantially more generous.
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