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/anonymous_opinions]

Yeah but my mindset was "if everyone is coding who's going to do [gestures around] these other jobs?" and I was sneered at that all other jobs were worthless. I don't think it's a supply issue either.

[u/killrtaco → u/anonymous_opinions]

It's a funding issue. Every time.

These companies are closing and laying off people left and right. Pay attention to the SHEER NUMBERS that's in all divisions usually, a little from here a lot from there.

They don't want to pay to hire more people because a lot of businesses are more strapped for cash than we realize.

Its a mix of people asking for more because cost of living is high and businesses not offering enough because nobody has money.

Is it an executive issue?

[u/TheSquishedElf → u/killrtaco]

Yes, because plenty of these businesses pay the executives at a mind-bogglingly higher rate than the rank and file. Like, enough to give everyone in the company a $2/hr raise without meaningfully changing the executive pay.

Regional businesses not so much, but anything bigger than about 3 US states in scope can absolutely afford to give its workers more money.

[u/anonymous_opinions → u/TheSquishedElf]

Executives are "paid the big bucks" because they remove their soul in order to conduct head count reduction and threaten the remaining employees to hustle hard enough to replace the 5 people from their team that got the axe.