Opportunity is there - the pay isn't. IMO.
Exactly.
Good opportunities for training in the trades here, as this is a blue-collar area, but pay lags. In some cases almost embarrassing.
Example, two young guys I know, one is about done studying to be millwright. He just landed a MW job for $18 an hour.
The other kid is taking welding classes, but wanted a part-time job and got one delivering ice on the weekends. Starting pay is $25 an hour to deliver ice, doesn't even need a CDL. Summer will pay him $28/hr and lots of OT.
For whatever reason, the trades in this area start people about where they would if they worked at McD's.
Lots of young guys leave the area/state to make a decent wage.
Lonny;
Top of the morning to you sir, I trust you're all keeping warm enough with this latest bit of weather that seems to be upon us.
Thanks for that bit of insight on your local situation, it's interesting to say the least.
While I can't speak to millwrights here, the young apprentices in the construction trades so carpenters, plumbers and electricians seemed to be in the same place where the starting wages while they were apprenticing were lower than say a summer landscaping job would pay.
I'm not certain if that's from the employers being able to get away with it so they do, from them having a high turnover rate once the apprentices reach journeyman status or just what exactly.
It seemed almost punative in some cases to me, but I do hear now that it's turning around a bit as companies are trying to retain the journeyman status workers.
The OP asked about high school here and in our part of BC it appeared to us that 95% of the curriculum was aimed at pointing students into university regardless of what level of liberal arts basket weaving would result.
We had one daughter who couldn't wait to get out of school and the system and one who knew she wanted to get a couple of degrees so worked towards that end.
The crazy thing was the local system really and truly didn't help either one that much and if the one who is now a high school teacher - which takes two degrees here - hadn't done a whole bunch of work on her own to chart her own course, it would have been a longer and way more expensive process.
One of her goals when she teaches now is to educate the kids who want to go on with secondary education how to do that, since as stated she got very little useful help.
Meanwhile though here for many trades but especially construction, we're so short of Red Seal tradespeople that they can walk onto a job and if they can refrain from chewing on their arm and have a pulse, they'll be hired.
Thanks again and all the best.
Dwayne
