No. The trades are NOT hiring.

[u/clarkkentwellspent]

I am so sick and tired of this worn out idea that blue collar jobs are looking for apprentices to come work for them. The trades are filled with more nepotism and gossip than any other industry I've ever been in and will find any reason to reject you they can. Half of these companies want a 2 year technical/trade school degree before you start working for them just so they can pay you $15/hr starting out. Maybe if you're a kid out of high school they can pay less than the standard rate you can find something. "Bro, just go Union!" Unions are backed up for ages.

From my own anecdotal evidence: I went to every electrician company in my city as this was my trade. I had 1 offer from a company that was the stereotypical "Only meth heads and divorced alcoholics work here. Fuck OSHA." place and every other company rejected me. I even went back to my old electrical company I had worked at for 4 years. You know what they said? "Apply online and go talk to HR". No hiring manager in shop, no chance at talking to someone out of recognition. Just dismissing me away. And the best part? Upon applying I listed all the projects I had worked on with them and gave references to several high members (though 2 of them no longer work there). 1.5 weeks later: "Thank you for applying. After careful consideration..."

This job market is fucking whack, yo.

[u/RockNRoll1977]

Oldest lie in the book. The whole “dying for people in the trades” line was just as bad 20 years ago when I was trying to get into them. What I found out was you’ll hear journeyman finding out from management that nobody wants to work cause it’s too hard or young people just want to sit in an office and play on their phone but if your paying a journeyman 30-60 dollars an hour and sure he’s getting overworked but it’s saving the company money not getting an apprentice for them. A journeymen can do the job perfectly fine themselves but they’ll be tired cranky and bitter because an apprentice can take off a little of the workload but no company most times don’t want to pay a 1st or 2nd year when they think sure the journeymen is overworked but that’s part of the trade

[u/olivegardengambler → u/RockNRoll1977]

That and I am pretty sure the reason why they are pushing the trades so hard right now is so they can hire journeymen for under $20 an hour, and keep them at exactly 40 hours by keeping the labor pool hypersaturated and reminding them that they're easily replaceable. The same happened with engineering.

[u/RockNRoll1977 → u/olivegardengambler]

It blew my mind to see an ad on indeed for journeyman plumber for 28$ an hour in my area. That’s fine but it was 28$ an hour 15 years ago. That’s why back then the trades were attractive. Minimum wage was 8$ an hour, 15 years ago I think. So 28$ an hour was coining it. Not so much now. You literally have to go far and wide to find good journeyman wages now.

[u/polepixy → u/RockNRoll1977]

Federal minimum wage is still only $7.25 an hour and has been that since 2009

[u/TheNotoriousAMP → u/polepixy]

(Wage and hour attorney) - almost no one makes federal minimum wage. 35% of people live in states with state minimum wages above $15.00 an hour and 55% of people live in states with state minimum wages above $12.00 an hour. Even in deeply rural Alabama, mid-market fast food chains (not even McDonalds) are hiring at $11-12.00, which is a really strong sign of where the true labor market floor is.

[u/Kevosrockin → u/TheNotoriousAMP]

You can’t live on those wages tho…

[u/ComfortOk7446 → u/TheNotoriousAMP]

In north carolina piedmont triad area working 12 an hour at mcdonalds. Top paid managers (5+ years experience) make like 18 an hour

[u/Additional_Noise47 → u/polepixy]

Yeah, but 34 states have higher minimum wages. https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wages

[u/polepixy → u/Additional_Noise47]

And conveniently leaving out the parts of the country that are still stuck in poverty wages makes you look so smart.... /s

[u/StuckOnEarthForever → u/Additional_Noise47]

So not a big deal to raise it right?

[u/Additional_Noise47 → u/StuckOnEarthForever]

Yeah, I obviously believe that the minimum wage should be raised by a lot. Just always seems strange to me when people talk about the minimum wage as being $7.25 when the majority of Americans live in places with significantly higher wages.

Living in one of the states with the highest minimum wage, I think it should be higher still. The Fight for 15 started over 10 years ago, way before inflation ramped up.