Thursday, November 14, 2013
Soldering Home a Point
According to EzineArticles.com, the average age of America's 500,000 welders is 55. To say that this represents a golden opportunity for currently unskilled young folks to get some skills and make some serious money (6 figures, according to some) is a monstrous understatement. What do you say that we put our political differences aside for a millisecond and take a whack at this one to start?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
Being a welder is an honorable job, but your comment about a six figure salary may give the wrong impression.
"Average Welder salaries for job postings nationwide are 42% lower than average salaries for all job postings nationwide." According to this source.
Well, the first thing to determine is how to attract craftsman minded individuals to forego college and enter the trade. Then there is the challenge to increase the need for welders, bringing back heavy industry in America to past levels.
But wait, isn't this contradictory to bottom line profit driven business models today.
Offshore, Head South etc.
Jerry, I was going by what Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs said recently in an interview. Yeah, he was way off. The average salary seems to be about $36,000 but it can go up to $55-60,000 over time.............There do seem to be some welding related jobs that pay significantly higher, though - http://www.indeed.com/salary/Welding-Engineer.html
Les, according to a lot of what I've been reading, welders and the the other trades currently face a huge worker shortage and we're still a strong #2 in manufacturing (close to 20% of the world's total output despite the fact that we're only 5% of the population) and when you through in energy and mining our industrial base is currently a solid 18-19%. We just need to start educating our workforce better in a forever changing and highly competitive global market.
"We just need to start educating our workforce better in a forever changing and highly competitive global market."
How do you propose we do that with the cost of education going through the roof and people coming out of college with debilitating student loans?
We need to make a stronger case for the trades, Jerry. We have vocational technical high schools and community colleges in CT that offer all of these programs and the guidance counselors really need to do a much better job at finding the right fit for students.......I would also submit that a huge reason for the skyrocketing costs of higher education is the fact that the government continuously subsidizes it. We really need to reexamine that whole issue, I think
"I would also submit that a huge reason for the skyrocketing costs of higher education is the fact that the government continuously subsidizes it."
Please explain how eliminating government subsidies will reduction costs.
Jerry, when you subsidize something, you increase demand. When you increase demand, you increase the price. And when you increase the price, you've created a situation in which you ostensibly need to give out even more subsidies. That, and you're seriously distorting the market in that subsidies create an incentive for kids to major in subjects like anthropology, philosophy, and drama that, while they may be interesting and mentally stimulating, have zero in terms of job potential.
I would also point out that (according to the "Chronicles of Higher Education, March 4, 2012) nearly 40% of the kids who take these subsidies never even graduate. These are kids who could have probably used that time much more effectively via working, doing an apprenticeship, going to trade school, enlisting in the military, etc.. AND they wouldn't have all that debt to pay off. Not everybody needs to go to college, Jerry.
You never cease to amaze me, Will. And that is not a compliment.
I'm in it for complements, Jerry.
Thanks for sticking to the facts, Will. Too bad others don't let the runaway train of ideology derail the possibility of a sound argument.
"Not everybody needs to go to college, Jerry."
I wonder if this is what Jerry is scoffing at? The fact is there are many young people who simply choose not to go. It is not in their interest to go to college. On this, rather consistently, I trust these people to make these informed decisions about their own lives. No-one else is qualified to make such decisions.
Yeah, I'm sure what his beef is, either. I mean, we have 40% of the people taking out these loans not ever graduating and even a lot of the ones who do graduate end up with degrees of limited utility. We really gotta reexamine this whole thing, I think.
Post a Comment