Guess what!
There's a whole generation of old men about to pass away, most of them tradesmen. And in my experience, crotchety and unwilling to teach.

Because this generation generally has less interest in trades, likely from being viewed down upon (see above), there is going to be a severe shortage of people working in the trades.

This will possibly mean two things:
Companies are going to scramble desperately to get new apprentices, so -good news- more jobs. But, expect a startling lack of quality in the years to come.

I don't understand why people pick on tradesman as if they're somehow lesser than them.

There's lots of skill and knowledge that goes along with doing any trade.

Also, while it's back breaking work, and you often work overtime, construction workers make bank.

This is an aged and outdated take that devalues the contributions of a very important job.

All jobs are skilled labor.

They get to create useful things unlike a lot of white collar jobs

Construction workers can make bank, mom!

The irony is now that the situation is totally inverted.

My STEM degree has got me making a barely livable wage while the GEDs who went straight into a trade are making twice what I make.

And the cruel reality is there is not a good way to determine which way this market will go unless you're one of the 0.01%. And if you were it would make this a mute point.

I mean.. At least as a construction worker my retirement plan is three-fold. The trick is to survive long enough and well enough to enjoy retirement.

The three are 401k, annuity, and the unheard of pension.

Granted, I'm also on my fourth pulled back muscle for the year. I really need to stretch more.

Like the guy with steady pay, job security, benefits, and a strong union?

Shit I better stop studying

They do a pretty important job, I just wish every single one of them didn't seem to be a die-hard Trumper for some fucking reason.

phone marketing would be more apt job to scare kids with. It brings nothing of value to society and its awful for the worker and those being bothered. Or just skip pointing fingers at any job and just tell the kid they will end up being exploited if they are left with no options.

While construction workers should absolutely be respected, you definitely don't want to end up as a construction worker in India. Construction workers earn like 300-400 rupees (3.61 - 4.81 USD) per day of work in the part of India that I live in (which is a very industrious part btw). These people overwhelmingly belong to the lower castes. They don't have their own home, and live on site in temporarily constructed structures made from metal panels.

These people suffered the most when the COVID lockdowns happened. Their places of employment fired them. They thus lost their temporary home. These people, along with their kids tried to move back to the villages that they migrated to the cities from. However, for quite some time, they weren't allowed to return back. Thus, thousands of people were immediately made homeless, having to sleep on the streets. Of course, they were harassed by the police a lot. Finally, when special trains were organized for them, there were instances where the police sprayed water into these trains on these people "to clean them". Watch this documentary by Vice news if you want to learn more about them.

Tell me your mom is totally insulated from reality and a huge cunt without saying it explicitly.

Worked in office and construction. Prefer construction.

All judgement until you hear a dripping in the night and have to pay that person a quarter of your "smart peoples" wages