
Reasons to Stop Ignoring the Skills Gap - apsec112
http://mikerowe.com/2016/02/stopignoringskillsgap/
======
douche
If I were a young man, and I was not in the top quartile, or really, top
decile, of my high school class, I would be looking real hard at getting into
a good trade, rather than going to college. There's nice money in being an
electrician, a plumber, a welder, a mechanic. It's relatively low stress, and
you leave your work behind when you punch out. Much better than putting
yourself massively into debt to try to get a degree of increasing uselessness,
particularly if you don't have the grades or the brains to get into and be
able to hack a good school and a tough program. I've known too many people
that really weren't ready or equipped to go to college, but got pushed along
by guidance counselors and the "Everybody goes to college" rhetoric, and the
only result was them racking up tens of thousands in debt and dropping out
after a semester or two.

The other traditional option for those that aren't really cut out for higher
education is the military, but they are starting to tighten up again, as I
understand from my friends that are still in.

~~~
fungi
To dumb to go to uni is horrible assumption to make of anyone.

You should be free to follow your passion/whims and study whatever they want,
love it, hate it, fuck it up, drop out, and try something else. Even more so
when you are young inexperienced and finding your way in the world.

> and the only result was them racking up tens of thousands in debt

That's the problem America needs to solve.

~~~
aianus
I don't agree that the taxpayer should pick up the tab for some 18-year-old to
have fun for four years. Do whatever you want, but don't expect others to pay
for you.

~~~
FussyZeus
I would disagree here. If you look at this solely from the perspective of
someone screwing around in the public dollar sure, it's easy to say screw
that. If however you instead look at it like: "This person tried this, really
didn't like it, is not good at it, and probably shouldn't do it", why should
we then force them into a field they can't generate value in -or- damn them to
a lifetime of wage slavery to pay for the schooling they can't use?

In my mind, college exists to prepare a pupil for a given field and if said
pupil for any number of reasons cannot do that upon exiting that institution,
why should they pay for it?

~~~
pliny
>In my mind, college exists to prepare a pupil for a given field and if said
pupil for any number of reasons cannot do that upon exiting that institution,
why should they pay for it?

Because that was the agreement they made with the institution.

Either way someone is paying for it, it can be the person who got the
(partial) education, or it can be someone\s that happens to live in the same
state as the person who got the education.

Even if it doesn't make sense to you that people who fail their studies should
pay their debts to their schools, it makes even less sense that you would
transfer that debt from the pupil to someone who was neither partner to the
decision to undertake studies nor a beneficiary of pupil's studies.

------
pappyo
> But no one seems to want them, and the reasons have nothing to do with low
> pay, poor benefits, or a lack of available training.

This is laughable. The average plumber makes around $50,000 and will top out
around $80,000[0]. And those wadges have flat lined over the last 15 years[1].
Not to mention, it's painful work climbing under cabinets, kneeling down and
standing up with heavy work belts, and contorting your body into every little
nook and cranny. It takes its toll on your body over a period of time, as does
the vast majority of manual labor jobs that are out there. So why would the
son or daughter of a plumber go into the work when (s)he sees her dad complain
about how the industry has gone to hell? I guess this is confusing to Mike
Rowe.

Let's imagine for a minute that an entry level plumber could make $250,000 a
year after a year long apprenticeship that paid him/her $60,000. There would
be zero problems filling these position with top notched candidates. Zero. So
to say pay and benefits are not the problem, misdiagnoses skills gap.

[0]
[http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472152.htm](http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472152.htm)
[1] [http://city-salaries.careertrends.com/l/116610/Plumbers-
Pipe...](http://city-salaries.careertrends.com/l/116610/Plumbers-Pipefitters-
and-Steamfitters-in-Providence-Fall-River-Warwick-Rhode-Island)

~~~
nerdwaller
I feel like many HN readers may have a non-normal view of reasonable wages -
given that boot camp graduates can get absurd money relative to their
knowledge/experience/contribution level.

Those figures you quote (50-80k) are starting right at the median income
(around 52[0]). Assuming they're decent with money and limit their debt,
that's a pretty decent living for moderate stress (granted health tolls are a
valid concern, but for all the bending/lifting they're probably not suffering
some of those health issues associated with high stress and crazy hours - it's
all a trade off). It's also only including salary income, do they get defined
benefit retirement plans? 401k? I was a financial advisor at one point and
worked for a lot of these skilled jobs - most of them had pension plans that
were funded (e.g. Guaranteed income for life, a non-included figure in
"income" typically)

That median is also taking into account all workers, so that's people early in
there career just as it is those late. If starting is actually around 50, it's
not a terrible deal.

Over time though the issue should be solved as a shortage tends to drive up
prices and demand follows suit. Of course throwing money at people to take a
job may help in the short term, but that's not really a maintainable way to
handle these issues. That money comes from somewhere, so either prices need to
increase or costs need to decrease (at the risk of it going to a consumer
fewer may be able to afford other things, thereby possibly costing other
markets - whether or not that is good is likely contingent on the market).

[edit]: It's also worth considering that, while they may be paid low during
their training, they aren't paying for it. Alternative careers may demand paid
for training (boot camp, college, masters, whatever). There's not only some
opportunity cost but also debt likely in this consideration.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_Unit...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States)

~~~
randomdata
_> Those figures you quote (50-80k) are starting right at the median income
(around 52[0])_

Just to emphasize, as I think it might be easy for other readers to overlook:
That figure is median _household_ income, which can include multiple earners.
Individually, the median income is closer to $30K
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States)).

~~~
nerdwaller
Good call, that definitely seemed like a high figure relative to what I
recalled. That actually looks even better for an individual laborer! 50k looks
much better

------
JohnnyConatus
As a business owner, I can tell you that were will never be a day when
business owners won't tell you there is shortage of qualified people at the
price they want to pay. At a minimum this is due to losing touch with the
increasing cost of living and at it's extreme it's just pure greed. I remember
the same articles even during the last two recessions.

------
rollthehard6
I don't know about the US, but here in the UK, if you are in say, your 40s/50s
and out of work, good luck trying to get yourself a trade - apprenticeships
are still the province of the young and the government won't help retrain you
either. This to me is as big a problem with respect to vocational training as
encouraging all school leavers to go to university to get a degree. As people
live longer we can't continue to ignore those who would retrain into a trade.

~~~
Chris2048
Wouldn't it be assumed that someone in their 30/40s would have savings to
retrain?

When I went to uni, there were a few mature students.

~~~
Avshalom
Lets say I've been making 50k a year since I was 20. I put 5k a year into a
retirement account (IRA/401k/$country's equivalent) and another 5k into just a
regular saving account to keep it liquid for a rainy day. After taxes and what
not that means I'm probably living on 20k a year.

I lose my job at 35. I now have 75k in liquid savings. I spend the first 6
months looking for a job, now I'm down to 65k, I decide to retrain. That's
10-20K and 12-24 months if I go to Community College. So I'm dead broke by the
end. If I have to buy a car, or break an ankle I'll never make it.

So I get a part time job in retail making 10-12k a year before taxes just to
help defray the cost and to keep the unemployment gap on my resume smaller.
Great I make it through. Except now I'm 37 looking for a job in a field that I
have no previous work experience in. So I keep my retail job and try to
squeeze enough hours out of it keep everything together, or I get a second
job. Now I'm a constantly stressed and exhausted 37 year old paranoid about
taking a day off to interview because _what if they cut my hours in
retaliation for missing a shift_ who is looking for a job in a field that I
have no previous work experience in.

~~~
Avshalom
Just to add: there's some assumptions here like: I live in a place with a
community college.

This "works" if I'm in Albuquerque when I lose my job. If I live in Carrizozo
or Tucumcari? I'm kinda fucked.

------
sexbucket
> Democrats blamed corporate greed. “Just offer workers more money,” they
> said, “and the skills gap will close itself.”

No seriously. Offer more fucking money.

~~~
mac01021
Why? They've already decided how badly they want to attract talent and set
their salary budgets accordingly. You're asking them to pay more than is good
for their businesses?

~~~
pjc50
If I set my phone budget at a dollar, I don't write articles in newspapers
complaining that I can't buy an iPhone.

~~~
mac01021
If you can justify setting your phone budget at a dollar, then your life is
structured in such a way that any phone would deliver at most one dollar's
worth of value to you and, in this respect, you are highly unusual.

If, on the other hand, there are 100,000 companies who all think that adding a
_insert-your-favorite-kind-of-specialist-here_ will enable their company to
generate $X additional revenue per year, where X is an above-average income
that many people would love to earn, but they can't find anyone to do the job
for $X, it makes sense to broadcast throughout society the message that this
kind of special skill may be worth obtaining.

~~~
brassic
If your specialist is generating $X additional revenue per year then the
company will be paying him more like $X/3.

Many specialists will realise that working for one's self or in partnership
with a small group of other specialists is far more lucrative.

So there's no contradiction here. The employers are right to say that if they
could employ more specialists on the cheap then they would win more business
and make more money. And the specialists are right to say that they make more
money with a different working arrangement.

None of this implies that there is actually a real shortage.

~~~
mac01021
Is there such a thing as a _real shortage_ , except in the context of an
objective that can't be satisfied due to that shortage?

------
CM30
Or in other words, the US (and likely a lot of other places) need more
plumbers and electricians, but fewer people seem to want to apply for these
types of jobs because they're not seen as 'trendy'.

Which isn't surprising, given how white collar work in a startup or internet
focused company seems to have almost become a default assumption in the last
few years or so.

~~~
martinko
Goes hand in hand with the oversubscribed university system.

~~~
Chris2048
Yeah, but not all subjects are the same. If we had too many engineers.. Well,
that wouldn't be a problem, if it's even possible...

~~~
mac01021
It would be a problem for many of those engineers, if they were unable to
find, on their own, commercially viable applications for their skills.

~~~
newjersey
I agree. It is possible to have too many engineers. People are complaining
that there are too many lawyers, for instance. There is no reason it can't
happen to us.

~~~
Chris2048
I'm not sure, and engineering degree is very flexible.

A friend of mine got a job straight out of university, and in the following
years did biological, civil and automotive engineering.

Lawyering, in contrast, I believe is fairly specialised - in that it's not as
easy to move around between different areas of law? Aslo, people will always
complain there are too many lawyers, the economics of law aren't properly
market-lead..

~~~
wott
Flexible? In these days where unemployment rules, companies will reject your
application if you have not 5 years of experience with the _exact_ complete
toolchain they use. Doesn't matter if you have been working 15 years in the
same industry and 10 years on the same kind of job, and that you could adapt
easily and quickly to other toolchains, jobs or industries, they don't care,
they can find someone that doesn't even need to adapt. So the more years pass,
the more you get stuck in the exact same thing, despite your theoretical
flexibility.

~~~
Chris2048
Hmm, I'm not sure. My friend worked in UK.

------
icantdrive55
O.k. I've heard enough of this skills gap from Mike Rowe.

I haven't figured out if he's "thick" pretty boy who honestly doesn't
understand why a company in the middle of nowhere is having a hard time
finding a non-union pipe welder, who's willing to even pay union wages, for a
two month job; or Mike is just trying to promote himself as some Skilled
Workers Guru so he won't have to work for non-union wages when this money
making gig dies out?

1\. If you pay a decent salary you will have a line around your union hall
with applicants. For example, try to get into local 6 in San Francisco. It's
the electric union for the city/county. I believe those guys are getting over
$100 hr. including benefits. Most of you will just not get in.

2\. Try to be become a union Plumber in New York. There were guys camping out
in line just to put their name on the list to take the union test a few weeks
ago.

3\. I have two extreme examples, but every union that treats its members
right; there's no shortage of eager apprentices.

O.k. how about the rest of the trades? Where are the workers? Let's look at
Mr. Sparky, and Benjamin Franklin brought up as expamples in this piece. Both
mainly hire non-union help. Mr. Sparky pays $14.00 hr, and I believe they
expect state licensed electricians to apply? They offer lousy working
conditions. No wonder they can't get qualified workers? They do charge
customers union prices though. Someone has to make a good living?

We don't have a shortage of qualified individuals. We have employers/companies
that don't pay much more than retail.

(I won't be back to argue. I a licenced general contractor, union electrician,
and went to automotive school. What I see is a lot of overqualified guys, but
are being exploited. I see a lot of foreigners doing these jobs at very low
wages.

In many cases, they do a good job with the right supervision.

So, I'm a hypothetical shop owner. I hire a guy who knows what's he/she is
doing, and pay that person just o.k.; and they delegate to a bunch of low wage
foreigners. This is how you get rich as an owner in the trades. And you don't
hire union if you can avoid it. And you don't hire union help. The point is
not hiring union. Did you get it? See your company seems to make more profit
without unions? And you have guys like Mike scratching their heads over the
lack of eager beavers lining up to fill these jobs.)

~~~
flukus
> Try to be become a union Plumber in New York. There were guys camping out in
> line just to put their name on the list to take the union test a few weeks
> ago.

That sounds more like a cartel than a union.

------
speeder
I am from Brazil, so maybe this doesn't apply to the US...

But I am seeing a major problem with pay.

For example, I never got a legal job (as in, registered employee of a company
following Brazil's laws correctly) since graduating in 2009, this is expected
during the heavy economy depression periods, but during the "boom" of 7% of
GDP growth, I actually was invited to some interviews, and had to refuse to
even attempt them, despite being "good jobs"

The reason, is that many of the jobs that were offered, the pay was lower than
my student loan repayments, I just couldn't accept those jobs. Back then, I
went with higher paying stuff, that weren't exactly legal job. (for example
being an de-facto employee, but getting paid as if I was freelancer, in Brazil
this is illegal).

Then, when the economy tanked again recently, I decided to outright not work
in many situations, because most of the work available were in places with
cost of living so high, that I would literally lose money, I would have to pay
to work (for example: not working at my parents house, would make my debt
increase by "x" every month, while working in São Paulo, would make my debt
increase by "3x" every month, despite now having a source of income).

For example I see lots of people claiming that the population is lazy, because
they don't want to be cashiers or street sweepers... Since I desperately need
money, I would accept those jobs, if they actually gave profit! Right now the
pay is so low, that my costs regarding transportation, food (instead of eating
the stuff I grow on my yard and cook myself) and health (for example sitting
the entire day as cashier is very unhealthy overall) would be higher than the
tiny salary that those jobs pay.

And then there is the "time loss", when even when the job is actually
profitable, the time you lose doing it is too much compared to the benefits,
for example currently most young people don't start families, here in Brazil
birth rates are already below replacement rate, specially if you ignore
immigrants (then birth rate is close to the one of a developed country), so
usually people need money only to themselves, not their family, so suppose a
guy can do some oddjobs and save 500 USD per month, and use most of his time
having fun, training, taking care of his mental and physical health, and so
on... or he can work 60 hours/week, and after all his costs, save 1000 USD per
month... would those extra 500 USD be worth 60 hours/week when he doesn't have
mouths to feed? I think that probably not.

------
gravypod
I really wish trade schools weren't dying in America. They're ab affordable
way for real people to earn a good living without as huge an investment.

I wish more fields were taught in trade schools rather then colleges. Ex:
software engineering, writing, art, some other engineerings.

Things that are t centered around academia, in my opinion, should be
considered trades. If they where we'd all be saving a lot of time and money.

~~~
kbredemeier
I agree with you. I went to college and graduated with a degree, but didn't
really have enough real world experience to know what I wanted to do as a
career. Skip ahead five years and I finally found a similar equivalent to a
software engineering trade school, Holberton School[1] in SF. I didn't have
the money to go back to school and didn't want to take out loans, and this
school was my saving grace. I do wish things like this existed for other
vocations as well though.

[1] [https://www.holbertonschool.com](https://www.holbertonschool.com)

------
nlawalker
The only argument that Rowe makes for the _desirability_ of skilled-trade
jobs, at least in this piece, is the job security they offer:

>> As long as Americans remain addicted to affordable electricity, smooth
roads, indoor plumbing and climate control, the opportunities in the skilled
trades will never go away. They’ll never be outsourced.

Of course "a whole category of good jobs have been relegated to some sort of
'vocational consolation prize'" \- they're _good_ jobs, not the _best_ jobs.
They don't pay the best, they don't offer the best working conditions, and
they don't signal the highest levels of social prestige. That's simply a
function of the other possible career choices that exist.

Ambitious people aspire to the _best_. Parents want their kids to have the
_best_. The biggest problem I see is that society and the increasingly winner-
take-all economy make it easy (and often economically rational) to feel like
anything but the best is a failure.

~~~
acchow
> The biggest problem I see is that society and the increasingly winner-take-
> all economy make it easy (and often economically rational) to feel like
> anything but the best is a failure.

Even if the economy isn't "winner take all", mating generally is. And that's a
completely different issue.

------
0xmohit
The hostname in the URL, i.e. mikerowe.com, led me to wonder if it is the same
guy as mikerowesoft.com [0]. Apparently, not.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_vs._MikeRoweSoft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_vs._MikeRoweSoft)

~~~
leereeves
No, this Mike Rowe is an actor turned blue collar hero as host of Dirty Jobs.

------
anjc
How can somebody who's clearly interested in building trades be so unaware of
the dynamics of the industry and training, and the effect that the recession
had on it...past a headline unemployment figure.

------
Annatar
Nice try, but the average pay for a tradesman is $15 - $45 per hour on the
upper range. People cannot live decently with $45 per hour, let alone with $15
per hour, which is why many now juggle two or even three jobs, just trying to
survive. Hence the term _working poor_.

~~~
aianus
> People cannot live decently with $45 per hour

That's $90k a year, putting you in the top ~0.1% of the world's population by
income.

~~~
Annatar
0.1% doesn't help you much when you have to contend with Swiss-like prices on
an American salary.

------
Zelmor
Here's the perfect article for IT folks being burned out and looking for a
career change.

