I feel like everyone is doing social media marketing - or something equally useless while the world around us is breaking down.
In the Bay Area, in San Francisco specifically, voters allocated funds to fix or replace every single Bart escalator. The best hope we have for completing this job is 7 years. Yes you read this correctly 7 years. The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work. Money isn't the problem.
Maybe more people should go into the trades - and not be funneled into higher education. We desperately need better infrastructure, more housing, tangible things. Not everyone is cut out for college.
> Maybe more people should go into the trades - and not be funneled into higher education. We desperately need better infrastructure, more housing, tangible things. Not everyone is cut out for college.
This is a common line of argument, but you will find that many tradesmen hope their children will go to college and get office jobs.
The trades are hard on the body. Some trades are hazardous. An injury or medical problem that would be a hassle for someone with an office job can be career-ending for people in the trades.
There aren't a lot of jobs for people in middle age who can't physically work a trade anymore due to age or illness or injury -- it's about as bad as being a laid-off factory worker.
The trades also get hit very hard in recessions as people build fewer things, infrastructure spending gets cut or postponed, etc. That, combined with the serious impact of medical problems and injuries I just mentioned, can make the trades more financially precarious than they seem to be.
I'm not opposed to people going into the trades, but some of the pro-trade-education arguments need a reality check. People need to know about the downsides.
I don't disagree, so this is my opinion on how that reality reconciles against how the world needs to work for us to enjoy comfort and prosperity.
Rule of thumb for depreciation is about 2-5% of an asset decays each year and if it isn't maintained the whole thing will need to be replaced every 20-50 years. Some things defy that rule, but most things need repairs. If we live in a world where going into the trades that build and maintain everything is not considered a first-class job that allows a worker to make a first-class contribution then that is a problem.
Rather than spending money on funneling students away from the trades, money should be spent improving the OH&S outcomes of tradespeople and improving their access to tools. If someone is umming and aahing about doing a trade or becoming a social media expert, they should be able to rationally see trades as the more worthwhile job for themselves and others (obviously unless they have a real flair for social media).
That's a great goal, but I'm not sure how we get there.
Trade unions have a delicate balance between safety/compensation and cheaper labor alternatives. Developers want to maximize the efficiency of their capital and in construction, human resources are fungible.
Europe does a much better job of OH&S for tradespeople but if you look around there isn't nearly as much being built. America is the economic powerhouse it is in part because of the typically-low cost of human labor and other economies are going through the same thing now.
In Switzerland, most people go into trades. Higher education is not seen ad having higher status in any way. Also, if you call a plumber to fix your broken sink, it's going to be really expensive.
Buying meat in Switzerland is expensive. Milkmen earn 90k CHF/year ($90k) so milk/cheese aren't cheap either. It's how SUI operates; this can't be really extended to US with a completely different economy.
Given the option, people don't flock to low paying jobs, so the market works both ways. If you want to have a good pool of good workers you have to pay accordingly.
Because we've all heard the "market" arguments hundreds of times here and they never seem to have much to do with reality at all. It's gotten to the point where I have real trouble assuming good faith when someone brings it up again.
Switzerland is known for high fixed cost of living. It has been said that the Swiss people don't place higher value on "lesser" tasks, so it makes complete sense that it is expensive without any relation to how much the market is saturated - it wouldn't become cheap even if the market was oversaturated, rather some people would go away from that market - because of fixed costs of living.
You make solid arguments about getting into trades. That's a field where unions have really helped out in some ways. I know they slow things down but they have also come a long way towards making people safer on the job. L&I solves some of these problems while having a promotion path can solve others. Electricians get bad knees, so at a certain point you've just got to get to the point that you can teach and not do. Or move into doing inspections.
Outside of that, one of the issues isn't that people should go into trade. But that so many jobs that are hidden behind a requirement for bachelors degree don't need it.
I'd love to see some of our industries out there take on apprenticeship programs for places where they think bachelors were required before. Probably not hard engineering fields, but my first job out of school I was a "Systems Engineer" but everything I needed to know was on the job training. Everything.
It's not exactly trade-related but as I've mentioned in the past my parents were fishermen. Similar to the trades, it's a very physically intense job that burns out your body, requires long hours and can be pretty dangerous.
After seeing how my parents ended up, it's no wonder to me why people would avoid the trades. We simply don't have the safety nets in place to protect people who burn out from those jobs, and no one wants to spend their later years in crippling pain as a result of destroying their back.
My parents were happy that I managed to get an office job.
I have an office job and I feel the need for physical activity. I take every opportunity: help out a friend to move to a new flat, help on construction site, whatever it is. I never saw physical activity as something that damages my body (besides normal muscle aches or blister on skin - which heal after some days). Is it so different to do this regularly/daily?
Before I got into IT in the late 90's (I was 19-20 yrs), I had various construction work to tide me over. Like climbing a 4 metre ladder onto a roof with 40KG rolls of pitch, or setting rebar (the metal reinforcement for concrete) in -5C in the early morning, so when it heats up later the concrete can be poured. Just a couple of many stories where a slip was life or work ending - or being so bone cold you couldn't think.
Talking to the older guys left me with only one opinion, get out of construction.
A guy I know still from back then was cutting through a floor with a circular saw and went through the main electricity line into the building. The line wasn't on the plans... He lived by some amazing luck, but there was a very big bang.
I'm a veterinarian and switched to software partly because it was physically too draining.
Worked as a cattle vet for 8 months. I couldn't watch a movie anymore, always fell asleep. Being outside, lifting calves, the cuts and crushed toes, it was all too tiring. Maybe I didn't do it long enough.
I still work duty shifts from time to time. Eventually you hurt yourself (needles, bites, scratches, lifting animals, ...), it's just part of the job. But it's annoying, and exhausting to always (try to) be cautious and focused.
I can't think of any job that uses body functions and/or tools and is completely safe long term.
Now I feel physically fresh after my office job, and then bike everyday straight through the fields to go ride my horse. Impossible with my previous job, as I was already burned by it. I've reached a sane equilibrium : office job and 2-3 hours physical activity per day. And I definitely felt that a "field" job was draining me enough to affect my personal life.
Basically you do it until you or your friend injuries his back while trying to catch a falling sofa from stairs. After that you just pay for moving services. Seen it many times.
> The trades are hard on the body. Some trades are hazardous. An injury or medical problem that would be a hassle for someone with an office job can be career-ending for people in the trades.
Very true. I know a Uber driver who used to install and repair ACs. Unfortunately, one day, he had a mishap leading to a serious back injury. He was told he couldn't carry on in this line of work. He had no other skills or means to acquire a college-degree with a family to support. The only option he saw best fit was to drive a taxi.
This is a real problem, and probably the core of the issue the toll manual jobs takes on the body. I imagine with careful thought quite a few of these issues could be reduced.
Tradespeople work more hours than anybody I know, and the unfortunate reality seems to be that they have to. Otherwise projects would take twice as long, and in the event of an emergency there could potentially be nobody to answer to it.
Where I am, it's not uncommon to see an electrician or millwright working 70+ hour weeks to meet deadlines or make emergency repairs.
I don't disagree with your comments about tradespeople's hours, but I'm not sure I agree with the reasons. A lot of those long hours are due to taking on more work/jobs to make more money. That is probably somewhat due to lower income per job as a tradesman, and somewhat due to the desire to work more "overtime" to make more money, depending on the going rates in the area of work.
Moreover, it's been my experience that people in non-trade work (particularly non-exempt STEM workers) often work just as much overtime and don't even get paid for the pleasure. Granted, their base salaries are generally higher, but a tradesman working similar hours can approach or surpass that. (I say this is I sit at 2:40am waiting for code to compile...)
Non-sequitor: I misread that first word in your comment as "Transgenders" and was flabbergasted halfway into that first paragraph until I went back and re-read it :D
>Tradespeople work more hours than anybody I know, and the unfortunate reality seems to be that they have to
This is much different from my experience. I see office workers (the startup crowd especially) working crazy hours, practically living at the office, and actually bragging about it.
Meanwhile, most trades jobs are unionized. So you might be working long hours in an emergency, but you're getting paid time-and-a-half at least. Outside of emergencies, you get to punch the clock, and leave work at work.
>I see office workers (the startup crowd especially) working crazy hours, practically living at the office, and actually bragging about it.
The grass is always greener. Especially if you look outside startups (and outside software engineering), I would guess the overwhelming majority of office jobs occur around a roughly 9-5 schedule without significant overtime. There's a reason rush hour is rush hour.
Then maybe the projects should take twice as long. Altrough, it is highly unlikely that 70 hours a week would produce twice as much speed as 40 hours. You dont get faster per hour with overtime.
>There aren't a lot of jobs for people in middle age who can't physically work a trade anymore due to age or illness or injury -- it's about as bad as being a laid-off factory worker.
I agree with you, it's a tough racket. But I think we're going to be saying the same thing about many fields and occupations in the future. Being a drone in an office is no longer secure or, in fact, healthy.
At least in a trade you're doing more than pushing paper. to each their own.
> The trades are hard on the body. Some trades are hazardous. An injury or medical problem that would be a hassle for someone with an office job can be career-ending for people in the trades.
This is definitely true and I know a few people who this has been a huge issue for but I'm not so convinced it can be applied to the future. There is a lot more "automation" now than when the currently burnt out entered the industry, tools from nail guns to scissor lifts are now a lot more affordable and even mandated. There's also been a lot of improvements improvements to OHS and medicine in general, kids seem to be a lot more fitness obsessed too. They'll always be harder on the body, but I would expect the 50 year old tradesmen in 30 years time to be in much better condition than the 50 year old tradesmen today.
On the other hand, they keep lifting the retirement age so if this doesn't pan out they'll be even worse off.
> The trades also get hit very hard in recessions as people build fewer things
Is this objectively true? It seems to be common wisdom but I've never seen data to back it up. A lot of trades are more maintenance than new builds and can't be cut. I understand construction can take a big hit, but we still need almost as many plumbers and mechanics during a recession.
We need to have a 4 day work week, and one day of adult education (something like a trade school but for the general population).
Imagine being able to learn to rebuild an engine, or weld, every Thursday. It might take you a year or two, but you'll get it.
> In the Bay Area, in San Francisco specifically, voters allocated funds to fix or replace every single Bart escalator. The best hope we have for completing this job is 7 years. Yes you read this correctly 7 years. The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work. Money isn't the problem.
There are 35000 escalators in the US. If a typical escalator needs to be replaced every 35 years, that works out to about 1000 escalator replacements a year.
I can't find offhand any data on this, but I'd expect that most escalator installations are only a few escalators, and so that the demand for about 1000 replacements per year is pretty steady.
Thus, I'd expect that there would be about enough mechanics to handle 1000 per year, without much excess capacity.
BART has 175 escalators. That job is big enough that to do it in one year would take over 17% of the nation's escalator installation capacity. That seems like a job sufficiently out of the ordinary that it is not surprising that it has to be spread over a few years.
I used 35 years lifetime, which I got from the escalators in a manufacturer's brochure I found--it had one that was rated 30 years and one 35-40, so I took 35. But these were heavy duty escalators. Other sources suggested 25 years, or 15-20 years. If you use a lower average life, you get more mechanics needed per year.
Regardless of the lifetime used, I expect that the year to year demand will be pretty steady, and BART's 175 will still represent a very big spike.
If trade school were truly competitive with college and University in terms of offerings, I don't imagine the Escalator Mechanic program would require more time or work than our lower and middle-class could afford.
This would need everyone to make logical choices based upon the same info.
We’re the only family I know that don’t mind if our children go into a trade. Our friends are horrified by the idea of their children not going to a university. My daughter is going to school to be an esthetician (skin care, beauty trade). In our market the ladies that do this make their own hours and make more than their husbands.
There’s plenty of money in all manner of trades. Many older folks just haven’t caught up with how much the ROI has changed since they went to school.
The other thing to consider, the more manual and dangerous trades are done mostly by men. Female labor participation rates are about to eclipse that of men. If you want more trades the smart thing to do would be to start trying to get more women into them.
From a feminist perspective not having a degree is treated as a death sentence of dependence on a man. A lot of young gals think their only option is a university degree and we’re all familiar with how few women are getting STEM degrees.
Certified Repair/Mechanic/HVAC isn't what it used to be. After my landlord paid $3500 to replace an in wall heater, a 20min operation I easily knew how to do, I honestly considered switching jobs. Do something with my hands be outside, not stuck in an office...
Then I looked it up. The test is intense failing on your first try is pretty common. You have to do 4 years full time of apprenticeship under a licensed contractor who unless they are family (nepotism) will pay you the minimum they can get away with. (This is why you tend to see the kids take over the parents Pumbling/HVAC/Electricians businesses)
Only after all that can you finally go on your own. From then on you owe $3k/yr to the state for insurance in case you screw up and kill someone and the state fund has to pay out. You have to pay this every year along with a $350/yr license renewal and show you are active in the trade, otherwise you can have your license revoked. Take at least 8 credits of continuing education each year as it relates to your license, which you must pass for credit (to keep up with a changing field). Take out your own insurance in case you screw up kill or injure someone and they sue you. Your tax rate is significantly higher as a contractor as will be your health insurance because you no longer have a large collective bargaining power.
Doing the math I'm surprised new people join in the bay area. The only way it makes sense is if you were already here with family or have rent control. Or you do your apprenticeship somewhere cheap like Bakersfield then move to the Bay assuming you can afford rent till you build a solid list of clients.
If the world really needs more escalator mechanics, then salaries for them will rise commensurate to demand and people will train to become escalator mechanics. Until then, they'll continue with other pursuits that are more profitable to them. This is how things have always been, unless you want to reinstitute medieval guilds, and I don't see a problem with it.
Generally, campaigning to make people to do something out of a sense of moral propriety is the wrong approach to creating change.
You are assuming that the world is well ordered and that all things will balance like that, but it isn't. People don't see those jobs as options, they aren't even aware of the opportunities, and there is social stigma against being in the trades. Even if you make a nice living in the trades, you will take a hit to your social identity, making you less attractive to others. That's how toxic our culture is right now. People don't value good work anymore, they value branding and image. And we are going to collapse because of it.
I assure you that if the job is paying enough people will drop any social stigma against trades jobs right away. I'll pick a paid off nice house over showing off to my friends. Although I'm sure the new house is much easier to show off than an office job.
I have talked to people working hard physical labor jobs and they make hardly more than I do as a junior/mid level web dev but they are doing back breaking work 6 days a week.
The national shortage of truck drivers in America does not support your argument. I heard from someone at 160 Driving Academy that you can make six figures with a CDL and the trucking companies will pay you to get one.
That's not even as hard on the body as other physical jobs. It is not a well regarded and the community of peers you interact with means that it isn't a very desirable job.
Yeah sure, you can make that after you are in the business for years, own your own truck, have a flawless record, and all that. What they don't mention is you not going home at the end of the day, or the hours you don't get paid waiting for other people to unload your or load your truck, or the social isolation, or the fact that a small misstep could cost you your entire career with your CDL and driving experience becoming useless.
The reason we lack truck drivers is because of pay, it costs a lot of money to get people to forgo a family, or a home, or sleeping in their own bed, waiting around in the middle of nowhere not getting paid just waiting, plus the costs of road food, the cost of maintaining and insuring your own truck, ect.
No, just no. I have a couple truck drivers in my family and the average truck driver does not make anywhere near that. The median salary for truck drivers was $42,480 per year in 2017 per the BLS.
Truck driving is the most mind numbing job I could imagine. But if someone was offering to pay $200,000 in my city I would take the job until I made enough to pay off my house and then unless they could significantly increase the pay or reduce hours I would leave for something else.
Also everything I have heard from truck drivers makes it sound not so great at all. They are under constant pressure to keep driving even while tired and are constantly gps tracked for performance metrics.
The guy at the driving academy might not be the most neutral source of information. Is that $100k before or after you buy a semitruck? How much does a truck cost? How often do you see your family?
> I heard from someone at 160 Driving Academy that you can make six figures with a CDL and the trucking companies will pay you to get one.
I remember visiting the Daily News (a NYC local newspaper) in the early 2000s and on the tour learned that the unionized delivery guys could make six figures. That was almost 20 years ago. The fact that the same salary as 20 years ago is still possible doesn't really say much.
I disagree about there being a social stigma about the trades. It might tend to be seen more frequently among certain age groups or geographic locations but I can't recall ever seeing people be thought of that way for having a skilled trades job (I'm in the US).
Quite the contrary actually, I think they're seen as very hard working. But I've also never seen very much in the way of recommendations from others in that trade to get into that kind of work. Probably because there are few people to do the recommending. There's certainly no shortage of freshman brogrammers who will preach a career in software development as easy money (they'll change their tune when they see the ugly side of things but that's a different topic of discussion).
It isn't so much a stigma as it is a lack of advocates for trade and an abundance of advocates for white collar work. It would be naive to think there isn't some classism that causes this.
Relax. Why do you expect a bunch of escalator mechanics to be on standby, readily available for a once in a generation escalator repair project? That's not how things work.
When we are electing the president by the same principle, I assure you that it is even worse than you can imagine. Societal collapse is imminent. Those who are comforted by their station in life always think they are living in a utopia. You are surrounded by fake smiles adorning people forced into subservience. At one time the myth that hard work and dedication would pay off in the end kept people in line, the "american dream" they called it. Now that myth has been tempered by reality, watching the last generation work all their lives with many having little to their names and no security is what looms over the current generation. We know it's a lie. That lie was keeping things together. We are heading into an age of great civil brawling fueled by immense economic pressure caused by corruption on all fronts.
This is such a shockingly naive worldview, but I see it almost every day.
Solving needs and reaping rewards have become disconnected - this is the exact problem we're discussing here.
In fact, solutions and rewards have become opposites in some cases, so it is more profitable to create problems than to solve them. This has become a significant portion of the economy across many sectors, but especially in advertising.
It's about more than profit. People have been encouraged to seek fullfilment in their work and so chase their dreams through university and plonk out the end with a piece of paper that doesn't make them money. It wouldn't occur to many people to do work outside of their degree because otherwise what was the point of the degree?
If it were about profit everyone would work in remote mines or offshore drilling platforms from 18 until they couldn't anymore.
You don’t need to assume perfect knowledge. There’s a reason the rich areas in town are all filled with doctors/lawyers/financiers/tech workers/engineers. They’re healthier, have better work hours, have more time and opportunity to move up the system. Anyone can see this, they would be stupid not to wish the same for their children.
And to to put one’s body in the way of significant harm, and work late night hours and give up your social life, anyone who has the option of doing something else is going to want quite a bit of premium. Not just $80k/year. Same goes for needing someone in rural areas.
I know several elevator mechanics. It pays well, very well. Also is a very dangerous job.
Its a special kind of personality. You need to be mechanically handy, and have some electronics and software sense as well. I suspect if more people were aware of what it paid, they would go for it, if they were willing to put up with hazards.
Not bad for a high-school education only, but when other people are millionaires because they happened to get into Bitcoin in 2011 or because they picked the right tech startup, I see why folks would rather put their efforts into getting lucky.
What a beautiful, efficient world. Sadly, what one can do instead is not budget enough for escalator mechanics, complain that the escalator mechanic union is unreasonable or that there is a skills shortage, then let the escalators break down.
On a local enough scale, it’s always about the money. If SF offered $1 million a year plus a $1 million relocation bonus to escalator mechanics, they’d fill those jobs by next week. You may say, rightly, that it’s ridiculous to pay that much - but at that point we’ve stopped talking about availability and started talking about price. So start from there and move the price as appropriate.
Now, if every municipality in the US tried to do this, there would be a legitimate shortage. The highest bidders would get their mechanics. The rest would have to wait, possibly hiring from the inevitable influx of new escalator mechanics a few years later.
> Maybe more people should go into the trades - and not be funneled into higher education.
Or maybe not create this arbitrary distinction, and let people who are going to school with the intention of ultimately becoming a welder or a mechanic be able to take an English or a history class.
For some reason, people who go to college for basketball get to take art history, but not people learning to be machinists.
Maybe it's the mentality that you go to university to earn the honor of not having to work with your hands that's the problem; I also think that it's why the sciences and medicine often seem awkward there. I'm not exactly sure what the difference between a computer programmer and an elevator repairman is supposed to be, exactly.
Welders and Mechanics in training are allowed to take English or History classes, they just have to go to a different school for that because trades are not integrated into most traditional colleges.
We should be saying, "Not everyone is cut out for escalator mechanic."
Those who aren't cut out for "real" work and traditional vocational education end up going to college to get useless marketing or business degrees. Plumbers, electricians, heavy machinery operators, drafters, are all making really good money historically due to the demands you're describing.
I agree with some of what you said but as an educator, the statement "Not everyone is cut out for college." doesn't sit well with me. Outside of some severe disabilities, I don't think there's anything inherent about who can and can't eventually succeed in college. Some people aren't adequately prepared for college by the time they turn 18 and that's a societal failure. Everyone should have the opportunity to go to and succeed in college but I agree that that shouldn't be the path everyone chooses. But proper incentives must be in place for that to be the case. As it stands, would you (rhetorical "you" I don't know if you personally have kids or how you would answer this questions) push your own children toward trades over university currently? Why or why not?
Jordan Peterson pointed out that the army has a cutoff of IQ 85 (IIRC) for their recruits. In the army’s estimation, they can’t find ANY job in the military that such people would be adequate for - and they might very well be right (it’s against their interest to reject prospective recruits). So, if such people of low intelligence (tens of millions of them in the US) are not good enough for grunt jobs, how well will they do in college?
For the silent downvoter: do you believe that anyone can do anything? I for one, have relatively high intelligence and I also get sick (cold etc.) easily. The colds rule out any kind of physical job, as much as I would like to be a jet engine mechanic for example, and I’m pretty much stuck with desk jobs. Do you believe that, in spite of my immune system being in the wrong part of the bell curve, I would do fine working outdoors?
Well, there's no set cutoff, and it's done by percentiles on the Armed Forces Aptitude Test, not raw score.
The US military tries to reject the bottom third of candidates, however, the standards are always changing depending on need and the number of people who are interested in joining.
It's true that the higher scorers preform better than the lower scorers.
I do not buy that inadequate preparation is the reason some people aren’t able to handle college. Sounds very naive and idealistic. Some people are simply not intelligent and/or disciplined enough to handle the courses and never would be - that’s harsh and I wish it weren’t so, but it doesn’t make it untrue.
Once you get a license, it will pay about $125/hour. Four year apprenticeship first, though. There is a general shortage of elevator mechanics, so go for it.
And how many hours of the day can I actually do that. $125/hour sounds real nice until you factor in the fact that most of these jobs have very inconsistent workloads so you could spend 5 hours working one day and then have no work next week or have to spend a day fixing a mistake for free.
So $125/hr is what the tech takes home from the elevator service company. The company is paying for insurance and general overhead, and billing the tech out at around $500/hour. The real money is in starting an independent elevator service company after getting some experience with somebody like KONE or Otis or Schindler.
I'll admit I don't know the first thing about escalator repair but I'm confident that a 4 year apprenticeship is absurd. Perhaps that's the real problem. The rules should be amended such that you can get an escalator repair license in 60 days. Problem solved.
> I don't know the first thing about escalator repair
I agree with at least that much of what you said.
It is near or at the top of OSHA's list of most dangerous construction trades. Elevators and escalators have extreme safety requirements for carrying passengers. I have been in enough elevator control rooms with qualified mechanics to be able to assure you that a 60-day wonder would be a very dangerous actor to let loose. After four years, I would not send a guy out on a job alone unless it was pretty simple.
Sending an elevator mechanic with 60 days of training out to work by himself is a death sentence for him, if you are lucky. For the passengers, if you are less lucky.
Are there any building management firms that have full time mechanics? Given that escalators and elevators are transporting people it seems like it would be easy to justify having someone directly responsible with its operation (like a tram driver).
Well, the way it works in practice is that most buildings have a multi-year service agreement with either the service arm of a major manufacturer, or a third-party maintenance firm. A really large property complex would probably have a mechanic who essentially is full time at that complex. But as a practical matter, you need access to spare parts, drawings, etc, so it is hard to be a one-man show. Because of parts access and licensing, I think it would be impractical for most commercial landlords to keep a mechanic on staff.
Usually for any building there is a primary mechanic who is assigned to that site, so that he has familiarity with the quirks of the system, relationships with the landlord's staff, etc. Of course mechanics in the same office cover for and assist each other.
The apprenticeship isn’t really the problem, as that’s pretty common because a newbie can really screw things up including causing deaths. The problem is the basic training. It costs a fair amount of money to setup the basic training facility and to keep it running.
Why was there only 1 flimsy panel between the top of the escalator and a deadly downward plunge? Why aren't there any safety layers in between? It doesn't take an expert to know that's poor (even negligent) engineering. Perhaps if escalators were better made, they wouldn't be so deadly and require years long apprenticeships for maintenance workers to not endanger lives.
That depends on the person, doesn't it? I have a nephew that has had issues with ADD. He is an intelligent young man, but not cut out for the kind of butt-in-seat stamina that it takes to get a college degree. He is currently almost done with a commercial electrician apprenticeship, and has finally hit his stride. He is doing well in his job, and acing all the licensing exams. He also has the kind of personality that cultivates good customer relationships, which makes me think that in a few years he could easily set up his own shop.
Do it right and you can get payed in college too. In Germany you have cooperative study programs for fields that are in high demand (like CS). Your degree takes 2 semesters longer in which you work at a company who pays you from start to finish of your study. Rates are similar to early apprenticeships if i am not mistaken. Also no strings attached, you can tell your company to screw itself after you finished your degree. Not finding enough people is a real issue in some fields.
Or maybe they should pay more to compensate for working odd hours and the increases chance of injury from increased driving and workload.
Guarantee there exists a number such that people want to do the job. Society just doesn’t want to pay that number yet, so it’s complaining about it and dragging their feet.
Sorry, a key aspect to any "labor crisis" is that you can't be paid very much. I mean, do you think that as one of the 10 escalator technicians in your city, you should be paid as well as one of the 500 doctors? Doctors are very important people.
If escalator mechanics are not very important people then how is there a crisis when they are missing?
Do I declare a labor crisis because I can't find senior developers to work on my website for $10 per hour?
The buyer doesn't get to decide that a job is not important so someone else is expected to do it cheaply. Either the job is not important so its no problem if no one takes it or it is important so you will pay whatever it takes to get it done.
I've met with quite a few doctors in my life and many aren't that important or specialized, they simply went through the motions to get there like any profession.
We (society) like to put MDs on pedestals because the relationship to life is direct and obvious, but we often ignore just how resilient the human body is and how in most daily situations, doctors aren't dealing in difficult life or death situations.
We also tend to ignore the indirect effects of other professions' on quality and longevity of life. If a traffic engineer saves tens of thousands of people 10 minutes a day in their commute, that adds up to saving an entire life of time quickly. Just an example of indirect effects on life.
I wish more people knew about how amazing jobs in the trades can be. I've lived in the bay for most of my 20s now and have seen quite a few blue collar folk do extremely well.
Right now in the bay we have IBEW journeyman electricians making around 200k a year. Shoot. Pipefitters, Ironworkers, they all do well.
It's hard work but 'back breaking' would be a misconception. These guys are encouraged to work safely and smart and as a result often have careers that span 20 to 30 years.
They apparently bought indoor models like 30 years ago and the person responsible for that then went and worked for the escalator company. Instead of suing for fraud, we’ve been assininely repairing them instead of biting the bullet and replacing them. San Francisco Bay Area is absurdly poorly run.
Like all the lightbulbs blowing in your house at the same time, they have a lifecycle and since a decent number of them were installed in the same timeframe, they're probably coming due a replacement at the same time ("same time" being the split across the 7 years referenced).
Since you're planning on having a multi-year infra project on the go and getting the expertise rolling, it's probably worth extending it across the network (even the newer ones), as I'd assume there's some economies of scale involved in parts and labour.
Judging by other comments in the thread, they're reaching their natural life.
Yes it is. Throw enough money at it and you'll have contractors from all around the world flying in to do the work.
It's like how tech companies complain that they can't find candidates to fill their positions: yes you can, just pay >50% more than FAANG does, offer them good employment conditions and you'll have the people. You just can't find the people at the cost that you want to find them for.
same goes for teachers. many universities aren’t about education anymore. they are what everything else has become: fundraisers. it’s sad given the education that i have had that i can count the good professors on one hand.
There could also be other reasons for this, like rent being so high that trades people can't afford to live in the area. One of the other comments even points out that trade schools are closing in CA left and right.
> The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work. Money isn't the problem.
Money IS the problem. And the root is an inability to have continuous political will.
The issue is that San Francisco never voted to schedule replacement of 10% of escalators every year.
So, San Francisco voted to go from almost zero spending on escalator maintenance to a large single burst outlay which will go back to zero after the aforementioned 7 years.
What do the escalator mechanics do when the spending goes back to zero?
In the old days, there weren't enough people who knew how to do social media marketing. But somehow a bunch more people learned.
I don't know. One might argue that the licensing requirement for escalator mechanics is causing the shortage. Or maybe impediments related to unionized work minimums are causing a bottleneck in the flow of people who are allowed to hold these escalator mechanic jobs.
7 years and 2.5 million per escalator. I really don't think it's an escalator mechanic shortage. For that price you can fly in mechanics and have them stay in nice hotels and have it done in a month. The problem is that the procurement process is totally dysfunctional.
> Maybe more people should go into the trades - and not be funneled into higher education. We desperately need better infrastructure, more housing, tangible things. Not everyone is cut out for college.
I think the root problem is the negative perception of not going to college.
I talked to the mason that refitted my house in 2016. He wanted to be a mason like his father, who insisted on him getting a higher education. So he complied and became a bachelor in law, then went on being what he wanted to be, a mason :)
>> we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work
I call BS. An "escalator mechanic" sounds like a profession that could be trained in a year, or far less if the person is some other kind of mechanic. The reason why this training doesn't happen is likely there's not much money to be gained, if anything at all. Or maybe there's a union constraining supply of mechanics, or both.
I agree that there needs to be more vocational education, and less stigma against it. But the claim that the problem above could not be solved with liberal application of cash is dubious at best.
In the Bay Area, in San Francisco specifically, voters allocated funds to fix or replace every single Bart escalator. The best hope we have for completing this job is 7 years. Yes you read this correctly 7 years. The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work. Money isn't the problem.
Maybe more people should go into the trades - and not be funneled into higher education. We desperately need better infrastructure, more housing, tangible things. Not everyone is cut out for college.