
Welders Make $150,000? Bring Back Shop Class - Maven911
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303663604579501801872226532?mod=trending_now_1
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benzofuran
So, as somebody who works with these guys, that payrate comes with a few
caveats:

1) Most of the pay in welding comes from contract jobs. When looking at
salaried/shop welders, you're looking more in the range of $50k-$100k
USD/year. When the welders are on contracts, they're typically on 4 week on /
1 week off rotations or further out (6/2 and 8/2 are not unusual).

2) When the welders are on contract work and on rotation, they'll be working
12 hours/day, every day, on them, or that's how the pay agreements work out.
So 84 hour weeks, and you're not paid for your off rotation.

3) This works to annual work of roughly 3500 hours. At $150k, assuming they're
paid straight time (many do get overtime but I don't feel like doing the
math), the hourly rate works out to $42 / hour, which is not that great (it's
not terrible either).

Many do make more than $150k, however some are on elevated pay for hazard rate
(subsea work, politically unstable areas, etc), and other have additional
modifiers (hot bunking adds $250/day in some cases). Keep in mind as well that
most of this work goes on in fairly horrible places (deserts, jungles,
subsea), and they welders are spending weeks if not months away from not only
their families, but often any communication to the outside world. _The pay is
there for a reason._

Note: On many vessels and offshore platforms there's extremely limited
bandwidth for personal use, often just a 256k satellite connection of which at
least half is used for operations. So that's 128k-256k between 16-40 people
who can only use devices for 2-3 hours a day.

Ask away with further questions, I'm a corrosion and materials engineer who
works in conjunction with a lot of welders and others on contract projects.

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Maven911
What do other fields in that industry make, such as material engineers?

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benzofuran
About the same, usually engineers have less time in the field but more
consistent pay and a slightly higher hourly rate. Drill engineers though are a
whole different range.

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letstryagain
Paywall article.

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spitfire
Welders who make $150,000 make me want to make a welding robot, Even if it
only handles a small subset of welds.

Maybe shop class should become robots and automation class.

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angersock
There are a great many cases where it's cheaper just to hire a welder and
stick them in strange places where putting a robot doesn't make sense.

Underwater welding, or welding in confined spaces, or up in strange places
doing structural work are all cases where a robot capable of autonomous
operation is either currently too expensive or outright impossible.

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spitfire
I've known a few welders over the years. High end industrial painters also get
paid large amounts.

I genuinely do think though, that things like welding and painting are ripe
for robotization. Even if it starts out as human augmentation at the low end.
Think clayton Christensen here.

