Unpopular careers with a shortage of workers

[Maxt]

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I don't why plumber hasn't been mentioned yet. I have one friend who is a plumber and the amount of overtime he gets is atrocious. I don't hear of many people wanting to become plumbers, money seems to be good too

There are different kinds of plumbers, and also pipefitters. There is a shortage of good service plumbers that can troubleshoot hot water heating, domestic booster and steam systems. The guy that got his ticket carrying toilets around on a highrise construction site for 4 years is pretty much useless in a service truck and typically will never command much of premium.

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I would agree. Top guys can be approaching a $1/minute with lots of OT available plus company provided trucks, paid travel with a huge diversity in daily tasks and locations in the province(s). I tell guys refrigeration is a lifestyle and not a job, they usually figure out the meaning of that after the first couple of weeks.

I thought it would be higher than that as an employee now, a buck a minute was 2007 wages.

[arcticcat522]

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Going into a trade with lots of demand you will be making $100k/ year before Computer Science or Engineering has even graduated and thought about looking for a lucrative job. That’s not much of a benchmark honestly.

Yep

[ExtraSlow]

I don't reccomend university degrees for top earning potential.

[89coupe]

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I don't reccomend university degrees for top earning potential.

1%

Hope you aren’t telling your kids this.

[ExtraSlow]

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1%

Hope you aren’t telling your kids this.

I'm telling your kids...

[ThePenIsMightier]

That should've said 2%. That's a more appropriate number for ExtraSlow.
2

[Thaco]

I don't know why anybody would suggest blue collar to their kids at all.

[Buster]

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I don't reccomend university degrees for top earning potential.

This doesn't make any sense. The correlation between income and education is too strong

[vengie]

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I don't know why anybody would suggest blue collar to their kids at all.

Bad post is bad.

[Gman.45]

Air Traffic Controller is what I was going to suggest.

You don't need secondary education, and the pay tops out now in the $165k range plus overtime after about 10 years or so, and during training/etc you're paid around $50k per year for the first 1.5-ish years, and then get a substantial bump once you're a licensed controller.

You don't need to be a genius either, it just takes a certain mindset, as well as aviation knowledge. Passing the entrance exam, at least when I took it back in 1993, was a real bitch, and the vast majority, as in 99%, failed it. I think 30,000 people wrote the test the year I got in, and about 4 classes of 30 started the year I did. It may be more relaxed now. That was just to get into the interview/health/security testing phase. It was a high pressure timed test with a ton of basic aircraft separation problems testing your ability to figure out time/speed/altitude confliction and deconfliction issues. Most people are very unfamiliar with doing this, but anyone with decent math skills and a reasonably fast calculating mind, I can, and have trained to pass the test in the same manner I was trained to do so (maybe 20 hours of instruction and another 20 of practice problems and I only got one question wrong on the entrance exam).

Anyhow, IMO it fits the OPs question, it's a career that's unpopular and almost always in demand of more people. It's really not THAT difficult or stressful once you get a bit of experience, the pay is fantastic considering the hours and lifestyle as well.

[msommers]

Isn't the suicide and burnout rate insanely high?

[Maxt]

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I don't know why anybody would suggest blue collar to their kids at all.

Why not? It's one of the easiest avenues to self employment.

[killramos]

Blue collar or White collar, working for a living is overrated.

Real success comes from owning something.

[ganesh]

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I don't reccomend university degrees for top earning potential.

I hope you are joking and hope you don't say this to any kid.

[zechs]

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This doesn't make any sense. The correlation between income and education is too strong

Do you consider ticketed trades educated? Honest question, nothing meant one way or the other, just curious.

Based on my experiences and those I've seen around, a degree opens doors that will forever be closed to you without one. Canada especially seems notorious for gatekeeping job positions that clearly have no need for a university education off limits to some.

Not to mention if you ever want a chance at immigrating anywhere, a degree is virtually mandatory.

[Buster]

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Do you consider ticketed trades educated? Honest question, nothing meant one way or the other, just curious.

Based on my experiences and those I've seen around, a degree opens doors that will forever be closed to you without one. Canada especially seems notorious for gatekeeping job positions that clearly have no need for a university education off limits to some.

Not to mention if you ever want a chance at immigrating anywhere, a degree is virtually mandatory.

I was referring to the data on university and graduate degrees.

[zechs]

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I was referring to the data on university and graduate degrees.

So if the statistics you cite are bachelors and higher education vs "the rest", the data would be skewed would it not? Or do you have data that compares ticketed trades to bachelors and up?

[Buster]

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So if the statistics you cite are bachelors and higher education vs "the rest", the data would be skewed would it not? Or do you have data that compares ticketed trades to bachelors and up?

If I get bored enough, I can post the data. But the data shows that education is correlated to income. So the higher education up the chain of no-HS to doctorate level, the more money that is made. Since "ticketed trades" are not part of the correlation, they could fit into any category of "education".

[zechs]

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If I get bored enough, I can post the data. But the data shows that education is correlated to income. So the higher education up the chain of no-HS to doctorate level, the more money that is made. Since "ticketed trades" are not part of the correlation, they could fit into any category of "education".

So we really have no idea if a degree is worthwhile versus a trade that is "regulated" from an economic benefit it sounds like.

I'm not making this argument with regards to phd/doctorate, but you know that.

[Buster]

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So we really have no idea if a degree is worthwhile versus a trade that is "regulated" from an economic benefit it sounds like.

I'm not making this argument with regards to phd/doctorate, but you know that.

A correlation is a correlation