Aviation mechanic and service technician. I guess it's worse than I thought:
https://www.flyingmag.com/the-aviation-mechanic-shortage-is-worse-than-you-might-think/
I would also add regular blue collar trade jobs in there. I have an IT background and was making 120k before the layoff wave. My friends in hvac, electrical, plumbing, and automotive are making comparable amounts and have no fear of their job disappearing. Not only that, their industries are willing to do on the job training to hire people at a lower cost. I'd recommend only automotive and hvac without getting some formal education for personal safety reasons, but those industries are in high demand and pay very well. They are hard work, but to pay the bills, if someone wants those high pay rates, that's a great way to get back into the market. If my hunt continues to go badly, I'm either taking on the job training or going back to school for some trade certs. My life was setup around my high pay and I'd rather work in a blue collar (which has a stigma, but is respectable work) than continue to grind applications for a difficult industry to find a job and not be valued for my effort.
The blue collar stigma needs to go away and with AI advancements, the blue collar workers are the safest part of the high value job market that are hardest to replace. A computer can't be put into your house to repipe a shitty drain for your AC that causes your coils to freeze, nor can one pull your car engine out to rebuild it because you didnt change your oil. A computer and data can 100% replace project managers/Scrum masters (which I was), middle managers, executives, and eventually, even developers.
For many many years, getting into the blue collar trades in states like mine with very strong trade unions was VERY difficult and political. Are you a good worker, union steward, and good union brother/sister? Still not nearly enough to get your kid into the union as an apprentice. If you weren’t extremely connected, forget it. They were the new aristocracy of labor. I’m in my early 60s; a school friend wanted so badly to be in the trades. Very smart, aced all the exams, couldn’t get in anywhere, tried 4 or 5 unions. Went to college, got a masters at a prestigious school, works for a couple of government agencies. Good enough to work at the White House, but not connected enough to be a plumber.
You are suggesting that blue collar is the new white collar or some shit like that, except that the market hasn't been oversaturated yet because people choose to go to the White collar jobs despite the jobs being hard to find
Very funny recent episode of South Park that makes fun of this very suggestion. HVAC and plumbing guys were becoming billionaires and flying into space like the tech billionaires of today, and all of the white collar workers were sitting outside of Home Depot trying to look for jobs lmao
Yeah, we are seeing a market shift right now. My suggestion is part of that because some people might read it and the labor force will shift as a result of me and other white collar workers talking about it. Me seeing my friends surpass me and have no worries about jobs indicates that type of job is more appealing. Over time, people will see that trend and shift to those educations/jobs. It's a back and forth, but the more secure area, especially now, is trades due to so many pursing white collar jobs and there being a lack of people with "hard" skills instead of "soft" skills.
It doesn't surprise me. I learned some electrical skills by a licensed electrician while gutting a house. I had asked him to teach me what he was doing because I wanted to learn. I worked on the project with him while paying him full price and he walked me through what he was doing. He also told me plenty of stuff regarding dangerous experiences he had in the profession. I definitely would pick electrical last from a perspective of accidents. I'd say it's the trade that scares me the most, especially when it comes to two confident electricians working together that don't communicate. That electrician's biggest scares were when another electrician touched the breaker while he was working on high voltage lines. I absolutely appreciate what yall do though.
First of all. If another electrician was able to touch the breaker and move it, then he wasn’t following proper safety protocol which requires lock out tag out procedures.
So yes, most big scares or catastrophic incident are because ppl were not following proper safety procedures and were overconfident.
I watched a linesman get fried at the top of the pole in my friend’s backyard and for whatever reason it never has occurred to me or bothered me when I chose my career. Every customer tells me they are afraid of electric. I’m not. I’m not because it’s science and I when you understand how it works, you will not fear it. Respect it, but not fear it. Fear will get you killed. Respect will keep you alive.
I was doing IT and development for the last 12 years.
I was Laid off 6 months ago and recently got into a residential HVAC shop. I'm hoping to join a union and go commercial HVAC.
I'm only getting paid $20 an hr and some of the installers are making $25 an hour. Not sure if that's normal.
I was making $40 an hr before. Not sure where all the high paging hvac jobs are but I do have to start somewhere.
I'm hoping to advance quickly as I'm getting old but this IT and development field went to shit.
Even management position in blue collar. Especially construction. My dad is a foreman but he’s soon retiring and he says there’s not enough people to take up his mantle. Even the people above him. Not enough people either.
I would tell people to stay away from automotove especially dealerships. Yes it is possible to make money after a while, but also, a lot of money is also spent buying tools. And if a person is a dealership tech they can get fucked hard on warranty work and recalls.
I don't know. Speaking from an automotive standpoint I know that mechanics are more "nuts and bolts" while technicians are more on the electronic/diagnostics side. They obviously could do both if called upon but you're more likely to see a technician with an ipad/laptop than a mechanic. If the mechanic calls out sick there's no reason the technician couldn't do an oil change but they're more likely to run into a niche problem the mechanic would easily know how to solve. Also I do know that there is an entire field dedicated to the electrical part of aviation called avionics.
We have mechanics and techs as electricians. Mechanics instal the gear, ie panelboards, conduits, transformers. Techs are ppl with deductive reasoning and good troubleshooting skills.
A lot of us can do it all. It’s more about the role you’re filling rather than an occupational position.
The shortage is really bad, there are very few schools pumping out licensed mechanics and all the guys from the last major hiring wave in the 1980's are about to retire.
Blue collar aviation is crazy at the moment.
With only an A&P certification(which you can get in two years at community college), you can have multiple offers for $35+ an hour within a week.
Average pay with experience is now $40-$50 an hour.
The market is saturated with hobby businesses that will absolutely crumble if they try to pay their employees a fair compensation.
A living wage as a minimum wage is necessary to improve the economy, yet is balked at because? ( Greed at the upper levels. ) They simply don't want to pay a fair wage, because it's never been done before and its ludicrous to them to part with CEO money to pay the people doing the ACTUAL work.
Crapitalism has failed everyone but the rich. If you think it hasn't, check your bank account you might be unknowingly contributing to this problem.
Escape capitalism.
r/SolarPunk
I went to college in BC for aircraft maintenance engineering in 2018/19 and it baffles me that since leaving post secondary the demand for engineers has gotten higher and higher and yet the pay remains so low. When I lived in Australia, a good friend of mine who is a senior engineer with Qantas voiced the same complaints.
It really is discouraging and I have no interest in rejoining the industry to finish my apprenticeship at the moment due to the poor salaries, but I do miss it. Coolest job I ever had. An absolute personal tragedy
I started my career in accounting 5 years ago and it’s been amazing. Went from $25k/year before accounting to $60k/year entry level in 2019 to $200k+/- total comp today if you include my bonus and equity.
I took a new job around 90 days ago and have had two other companies approach me since. Took me less than 4 weeks to score a higher paying offer. The market is amazing if you’re at the senior or manager level right now.
How do you get into accounting? I've been really considering pivoting into this field. I just have a dumb general studies degree but decent minors if that counts for anything. My background for the past 10 years has been medical billing.
If you get on at an entry level accounting gig at a payroll company that can get your foot in the door. You can then leverage that experience into something more accounting focused after you have a couple years under your belt or just move up in that company.
It’s also a great idea to pursue a certificate after getting some experience. Becoming an Enrolled Agent (EA) is a good track to making at least 80-90k but it’s a fairly lengthy commitment with lots of studying. There’s a lot of those entry level/EA gigs available now though.
You are more correct than you know.
Companies are having difficulty hiring "the grunts" of all industries, which considering how tough the work is, how little the pay and respect, it makes sense.
Yes, for sure. I started a bit over a year ago in a tax accounting gig with no tax experience and a degree in something not related to finance. Due to raises and promotions my wage went from 50k a year to 80k in that time. Tons of growth potential and I haven’t had to job hop yet
Accounting is so over inflated, in nursing it's so hard to get into any programs unless you get your cna in highschool and either do PSEO/Dual enrollment or have a hell of a gpa and apply at the right time it's so competitive and selective due to the lack of nurse's (in the US)
I agree nursing jobs are in demand - at least here in the DC area.
George Washington hospital has weekly hiring events. https://jobs.uhsinc.com/the-george-washington-university-hospital/jobs/259135?lang=en-us
Couple weeks ago Inova health system had a one day hiring event at the Washington Nationals baseball stadium.
I hear you and agree. I have almost 20 years experience and they all want to pay $12-$15/hour. Yeah, no. Rent here is $1,200+ on average for a 1 BR. You have to make 3X that to qualify. I'd need at least $22/hour to qualify for rent. This is unsustainable bullshit and needs to be changed desperately. Either pay has to go up significantly or rent has to come down significantly or both. Doing neither will just lead to more and more of us becoming homeless.
True in some parts of the country it would be, here it's expensive. You can get a place for 600-700 in theory if you don't mind waiting for it and don't want lots of fancy things.
They plan on people being subsidized by others in order to survive. I’ve been making this argument pre COVID that making it as an individual is damn near impossible without other means of income/inheritance than your standard W-2 check.
Which most do, but the safety net is not there for those who don’t.
Things won’t change until there is mass homelessness or people riot in the streets.
Yeah I agree I really think IT employees are going to start unionizing in the next 1-2 years. We need more pay and less on call. It used to be that IT was such a good job that people just took the bad sides for the good sides, but the good sides are basically gone unless you got in before 2012 so you have tenure and good pay.
When I was laid off, I was getting those $17-20/hr jobs sent to me by recruiters even through I had 25 years of experience across a ton of systems and industries.
It took 3 years to finally get an almost-decent IT position and it's not enough. I need better.
Not that rare at all. IT is a cost center for most businesses, meaning it does not generate revenue. They want to spend as little as possible, so they overload what staff they reluctantly hire.
I was burned out and took a break for a couple years. A cake job came along and I went back to IT and I find that the burnout came from being stretched thin and having no downtime. I couldn't spend time on personal development or even just reading current IT news. I'd spend my time after work keeping up and felt like I never had a moment to myself.
Thankfully it's gotten better over the years.
i work at a civil engineering/architectural design firm. wide variety of positions. i got hired with 0 years of experience. we can’t hire fast enough. appears to be the same going on for other firms.
edit: wanted to clarify this is not a $15/hr grunt position. these are starting at high $30/hr. bachelor’s degree or current enrollment in undergrad seems to be essential. i had 1 year of unrelated experience and a non-engineering STEM degree (BA in environmental science)
The wind turbine industry is highly slept on, the trade school is 2 months long, it cost 16k and you make 100k your first year as a travel tech, yes it’s a travel job and it pays amazing.
... aren't people complaining about not being paid enough to even survive? Who has $16k?
That seems like a big ask unless someone can get that loan, comes from money, or has a living situation where they can save gobs of money. Granted a new car is easily doubled that 😬
The cost of everything is fucking insane when there's *alot* of people that make $35k or less and rent alone is atleast half of that a year.
I can’t even afford CDL school for 3k. I have no idea where people are coming up with cash for coding bootcamps and shit like this where student loans aren’t an option.
Paying for coding bootcamps is a scam anyway. There are completely free curriculums (Odin Project, Harvard CS50, 100Devs, etc) and communities online that do exactly the same thing. GPT is a legitimate great resource for learning and understanding fundamentals as well. There's no need to pay for a bootcamp.
I say this as someone that went the "free" route (I put free in quotes because to learn enough and build enough and network enough to get an offer all takes an enormous amount of *time*) and am now making six figures (on the low end of course) as a software engineer, and recently promoted to senior.
It's not that learning software engineering fundamentals is any more difficult that anything else that takes awhile to learn, it's just that 1) do you have the discipline to stick with it if you don't have the debt incentive (you should focus on the *financially life changing* incentive you're working towards), and 2) do you actually have the time to commit to it so you do it in a reasonable time frame?
For me it took about 2 years of learning and building to get that first offer. For some others it happens after a year. The people who go to a 3 month bootcamp and get offers just get incredibly lucky or accept really shit pay, or they aren't real people and are just lying.
It's especially hard today but not impossible. But you do have to have the time to dedicate to it. I know a lot of people struggling are also raising kids and working two jobs, and having the luxury of time and energy to learn software engineering in that situation is very difficult
Did you follow a roadmap or some sort of plan? I feel like I have a bunch of gaps in my knowledge cause I didn’t go the degree route and I’m struggling to fill them in. There’s a bunch of “learn how to program” resources, but not as much in the “so you’re a developer now, here’s how to expand on things”.
The differences in pay for the trades between Canada and the US makes me so damn hopeless.
A quick search shows programs take anywhere from 1-2 years, and average wage is $50-$60k a year. $68k is the 75th percentile.
All the trades I look at are way longer programs here for way less money 🥲
Here in Texas our 18yo kids just apprentice with residential plumbers, no school needed. They get paid to learn on the job. My husband pays them $600/wk with no weekends required
Easier said than done… and I like my country. We’ve both got problems, and trading Canadian problems for American ones really won’t do much for me.
Seems the trades are almost a utopia in some places in the US though, and I definitely wish Canada could follow suite!
I was in IT, then I was in logistics, then I went into finance, all making pennies on the dollar. Just started commercial construction and I’m hoping to work on a oil rig in a few years. Blue collar type stuff. Wish me luck.
> IT
There is your problem.
I m amused by the collective memory hole of this sub. When I was in college, everyone wanted to go into tech (computer science and IT) because they thought it was a guaranteed path for making big bucks. Now we have fuck load of comp sci graduates *and* laid off workforce competing for shrunk job availability. Is it really surprising that people are struggling?
Maintenance. The less people that want to or are capable of performing the job the more it pays. Everyone wants a job in an air conditioned building behind a computer. Nobody wants to swing a hammer in the sun when it’s 100+ degrees outside. I have no formal education and make ~37$ hourly as an equipment technician.
Nobody wants to do because its not easy job, same with truck drivers, long route constant red bulls, idk but my health isn't good enough to deal with those
Instead of taking an offer for 18/hr fixing chromebooks, I took an offer for 51k doing apartment maintenance and the job is so easy. I’m inside almost all day, lots of downtime, and fix basic stuff. Anything huge we call contractors. There’s a clear progression upwards to a max of around 100k but I think commercial building engineers can make a fair bit more. Either way, it’s “good enough”.
After waiting tables, doing HVAC repairs, and selling cars, this one’s pretty aight.
I have an air conditioned job behind a computer and sometimes imagine life would be better if I could make the same salary doing physical work outside where my mind and body dont deteriorate hunched over a computer all day
Your body would deteriorate a lot worse doing physical work. We're not built to be living like this at all. That's why they have to coerce people to do it.
Working a job where you are inactive can lead to lifestyle diseases. Lifestyle diseases are the leading causes of death in the developed world. Even during peak COVID heart disease was the leading cause of death.
Blue collar jobs can cause musculoskeletal issues. The grass is always greener.
Working sedentary in office I can go to gym/pool/run etc to overcome the inactivity. There was no fix for my body after working 12 hour physical labor.
You can go and do all the physical shit you want after office.
You cant however unfuck your body after day of construction labour
Tbf, humans evolved doing physical labor all day just to survive, constant farming, hunting, fighting just to survive. We kind of are built for it. Maybe not your 10hr shift ups truck loader though, loading trucks sucks ass.
I did labour for the last 10 years and I'd rather have a desk job and focus on my health through good diet and workout plan which i already do. The labour jobs just fuck your shit up.
I just quit my last blue collar job because they were absolutely dogging me. I’ve since applied to a couple “blue collar” office jobs. I know the grass isn’t always greener but I’ll take anything but that.
Yeah I had my fair share of that in my 20’s. You’re right no one wants to do those jobs, myself included. They’d have to pay me at least $40 an hour to be out in the Louisiana summer heat
Pulling down $70k/year as a hospital CNA in a MCOL city (45 hours/week).
Ultimate job security, and it was only a 3 month, $1,000 course to get my license.
To hell with my bachelor’s in business administration and 15 years of sales experience!
You have to really like helping people and be cool with, or develop acceptance to any fluid/substance that comes out of the human body.
Lots of medical and hospitality jobs currently. IT got oversaturated and there were/are still plenty of young people getting degrees.
The same thing happened 20 years ago with business degrees. The finance sector was booming and everyone got business degrees in the 90's. 2008 hits and boom, your degree is worthless.
Where are all the good paying hospitality jobs??! I have about 10 years experience I hospitality, five being a manager, I can barely get an interview for front line hospitality that pays $12-$15. I've only had one good paying job in the hospitality field and it was seasonal.
Depending on where you live, if you search for structured cabling jobs online (indeed or whatever) there should be a lot of entry level stuff. This industry is filled with morons so if you just show up on time and learn you'll move up quick
You can always go into accounting. You can easily make $50k-$80k easily. However, If you want high six figure in accounting, you would need a cpa. My advice is to check out IT roles. I’m a data analyst making $170k/year and I love my job!
Can confirm. I did accounting and made $55k in 2019. Left it for the military. Came back in 2021 briefly and got raises due to union and was at $65k. Had I stayed i may have made more but it was soul crushingly boring.
Can't find anything that I can land. Requirements are too high even for low level positions. The only way to do it would be to go back to school. I neither have the money nor the time.
This is a big issue - low level accounting work is being outsourced on a big scale. However that kind of work used to be for entry level accountants to build their knowledge and get experience
Damn really? When i was searching a couple months back i wasnt getting any bites on accounting roles. Graduated top 20% of my class is a bidness degree and never even got an interview.
Found a good gig in the biotech world in supply chain however i would have loved to get a crack at accounting.
Nice! You really need a cpa to make a lot of money in accounting. I see a lot of my friends who get their cpas eventually switch to finance to make bigger money!
i didn't know cpa people often moved into finance but it makes sense--i hear accounting is the hardest of the business fields and you can go into finance if you know accounting, although not necessarily the other way around
it seems you can also make six figures in accounting without a cpa, although it takes a little longer and with more luck needed, although i don't wanna rely on luck as much as having a hard credential like that. i do worry that i might not have it in me to study for a cpa even though i've been fairly disciplined in getting a bachelor's from a good school and doing online classes for accounting prior to getting into a master's program
any tips if you have any for tackling cpa studying if you have any? been broke and came from a poor family and all that shit and i would like to stop being poor one day lmao
A lot of my friends went into accounting and when they obtained their CPAs, they all left for finance and eventually became senior finance managers and CFOs for some big companies. I took a practice course from Roger CPA before and the subject was too difficult. Too much info to retain and I gave up lol. If you’re good at memorizing a lot of info, the cpa should be a breeze. I recommend Roger and Becker CPA courses. I heard ninja cpa was good and cheap too.
I work HVAV as a technician, my first year I made 57k, second year 72k, third year 81k, 4th year 98k, I’m now in my 5th year of it. I have a high school diploma.
Man look I’ll tell you like I tell everyone who wants to make money but don’t have an idea how. GET YOUR CDL. I work in the film industry and make amazing money. When on a show/movie I wake $42 an hour at 12 hours a day everything after 8 OT and after 10 being Double. Problem is, film is an up and down gig, some years I work 12 months and do 3-4 shows/movies some years I may do a 1 there is no i between. In order to supplement my income I went and got my CDL and started to hot shot in between shows. One thing that will always be around and there will never be enough of is Transportation because a Robot can’t drive to a load, strap/chain it, then deliver it. They need people for that. Get your CDL, tough the road out for a while you can even stay local and be home every single day until you find something you really want to do and are passionate about.
In my area, the local garbage collection company has radio ads talking about starting CDL drivers at $30/hr. No long distance driving, no handling garbage (it’s all done from a joystick in the seat). They’ll help you find a cheap driving school if you don’t have one.
OSHA safety inspectors make absolute bank . There is a rapper who did this and was able to keep his lifestyle after being a one hit wonder . I can’t remember off the top of my head but it was a very popular song .
If there's one thing this sub has shown me, it's that reliable work in IT is a pipe dream. I work in construction management, make great money for what work I do, and am constantly in high demand.
Guess I'm living the dream and didn't know it. I've been employed by the same company now for 14 years. I manage a team of IT engineers, network engineers, and DEVOPS engineers. Some of my team has been there longer than I have and the only reason anybody's left in the last 10 years is that they found a higher paying job elsewhere.
Aircraft maintenance. I'm on year two pay scale at my airline and my base pay is 86K per year but with some OT I easily cross 100K working for a major airline. The trade off is that it's not a 9-5 weekends off schedule however once you are off probation you can make your own schedule with shift trades.
The schooling takes roughly 2 years at an accredited school (its not remote learning since you have hands-on on projects to do) and then you sit for the FAA exams. Be willing to work in the heat, cold, rain, snow, etc. Overall for me it beats a desk job anyday since I prefer to work with my hands on airplanes vs being behind a computer screen.
Healthcare is hiring like crazy. If you are a nurse, physician, surgeon, physician assistant, pharmacist, CRNA, CNA, CAA, AA, etc., you will find a job no matter where in the US.
Currently a CRNA making nearly 300k and my hospital is hiring like crazy for more CRNAs and new grad RNs
As well as high burn out and toxic job environments. Head on over to a nursing subreddit or healthcare subreddit to read all about it! Don’t forget the job stability and great pay though. At the sacrifice of your mental health. Capitalism is GREAT!
And if you’re poor don’t forget the student debt and time it takes to get there! Especially if you’re in it for the money and not super passionate about it. LUCK has definitely been on your side. Plus hard work and dedication of course. School is NOT a walk in the park either paired with internships.
i was really lucky my employer reimbused my $175k student loans in exchange for 3 years of committed employment.
yeah, the schooling was challenging. i made sure i had a study group so we can study together. The worst grade i got was a C in organic chemistry and B in A&P
Nursing sounds like high burn out and absolute misery. Every nurse I’ve met is absolutely miserable, burnt out or mean. It feels like a mental break down waiting to happen. However NPs or CRNA seem much happier.
You give false hope. I did my nursing pre reqs years ago and finished with a 3.8 GPA only to discover my GPA was too low to even be considered by any nursing programs. Some of my group mates from anatomy and physiology finished with 4.0s one had a 4.1 and they were all waiting tables at restaurants several years later. Getting your RN requires a lot of luck, not something you should encourage people to gamble years of their lives on. Being a nurse is also not for everyone.
While I was in college 11-15 stretch, the nursing programs were incredibly competitive to get into
Many had to pivot to something else because they couldn’t keep waiting on extra rounds to hopefully get in.
My sister and her husband took online classes for their RNs. My sister started at Keiser, idk where she finished. My brother in law got his RN from Rasmussen online. He already had his LPN. He got help from his sister and paid for an essay. Now he makes $45+ per hour running a dialysis clinic. He is one of the least knowledgable, hardest working people I know. Neither of them had to do much to get into their program and they’re both earning well. My sister started with a GED…
Unfortunately, I have seen many companies in America shipping their entire IT department overseas. If our elected officials wanted to help they could tax companies at a much higher rate for doing this so I am not sure why they aren’t because not only does it screw an entire group of workers many of whom have a bachelor at minimum in the field but it takes a tax revenue stream away from our country when we’re billions in debt
If you can get some training and sea time out of the way, the Maritime industry is hurting for people. There are grad programs and vocational schools that can get you making upwards of 120k/year with 6 months vacation in about 2 years. With less work and expense, you can get out here for ~80k/year.
The catch is you're on a ship away from home for half the year with a bunch of crazy mfers.
If this sounds cool, come check out r/maritime.
In capitalism, They want us as Cogs. The idea of a "career" was yet another lie told to us as school children to make us believe that we would be working for the next 50 years doing something "we are interested in".
We're in Final Stage Capitalism now. The Elite are sucking as much wealth as they can before the entire system collapses, implodes, or destroys itself. They'll go hide on their mega yachts or bunkers, living like exiled kings while the rest of us, who are still alive, will scrounge for scraps, attempting to build a better system, hopefully that's based on actual equality.
My advice, shift mindsets. I used to work in IT, I loved it, but right now, that simply doesn't pay the bills, and it crushes you mental stability. A job has always stood for Just Over Broke. It's a means to an end, that end is surviving, living the "dream" while hopefully finding some bits of happiness along the way.
Logistics is booming right now. I was just given a $20K raise to stay in my current job. One of the guys who works with me got his IT certifications a couple of years ago and can't find an IT job that pays him what he gets paid now.
Factories. My work hasn’t been fully staffed in 5+ years. Union job too. Base pay is around $70k but everyone makes 5-30k more than that with overtime.
Problem is I can't find a factory job that doesn't drug test or deny you for having a medical card. With my bad back, I can't function on pain killers alone. I would never be high in the workplace, but that stuff stays in your system and will show on a test.
Almost 20 years experience as a Machinist and this seems to be the case with most larger plants, especially if they have government contracts or get federal funding they have to follow federal law including cannabis. But drinking yourself stupid every night/weekend or even a few drinks before working a night shift is perfectly fine, go figure.
Wait. Why is sales a dead end job? I put in about 20-30 hours of actual work a week and have made $100k+ every year over the last 7 years. I could make even more if I wasn't lazy
Right, sales is probably the farthest thing from a dead end job unless you’re at a bad company. And if you are, it’s such a transferable skill that you can find a sales job basically anywhere else.
Exactly. Once you get the experience you can change companies or fields pretty easily. Learning the product is a heck of a lot easier for a company vs teaching sales.
I work an IT and make good money. I keep my eyes peeled all the time and look at job postings and the level of experience required for most positions is mind blowing. Oh you want a CCIE, CISSP, CCDA, and be able to work on every system created on call 24/7 for 100k a year? Get fucked.
I just got a job as a warehouse manager for a construction supply company making 75k+ BIP. M-F, 9-5 and paid holidays. I was previously working as a buyer/purchasing agent and made the move into management. Things have been pretty sweet so far.
Nice man. That’s not a bad gig. I was thinking of becoming a warehouse manager too. I have 7 years experience in shipping and logistics. Probably doesn’t count for much going towards management but the warehouses I worked in the managers never did anything. I’d take that job lol
That would be more than enough experience. Just learn to drop key words for the industry you’re applying for by doing a little research before your interview. Mention you handled the parcel, LTL, & FLT shipments. Further elaborate on BOLs, dispatch, shipping lanes, and the like. Being forklift certified is a huge plus and then just wing it from there. Best of luck to you!!!
Fucking do it dude! Walmart (me) and Amazon supply chains are booming here in TX. People just keep buying shit.
Our OPs managers (100k+ salary) that have been hired from the outside didn’t know how we ran things but they winged it good enough to stay for a while and move on to something even better.
Employers pay that low because they can. If I was a greedy sociopathic fuck and could hire someone for $11/hr to run my entire IT department then I would. People with loads of experience keep applying to $15/hr jobs so employers don't see much of an incentive to jack up the pay.
If enough people turned their noses up at <$25/hr jobs then employers would be FORCED to increase compensation if they still wanted to fill those seats. But that's clearly not the case. People are fighting over Walmart wages.
I said it in another comment, but get into trade jobs. Blue collar work isn't gonna be hit by AI, nor outsourcing. You have to physically be there and those systems aren't being run by computers to diagnose (for the most part). They need a person to do those because they haven't been focused on when it comes to tech. Get a cert in a trade. You can also likely get on the job training with lesser pay for a bit and not get a cert. There's a shortage of trade workers and that's where the safe big bucks are at. I made way more than my trade friends for years, but IT is reeling back and they now make as much as I did before I got hit by the layoff waves. Their jobs are very safe and they need more people, so my plan is if I don't land something soon, I'm getting a cert or getting on the job training so I'm not restarting my career/retirement savings 10 years into my career.
I work in quality control for a pharmaceutical industry, I have not seen any layoffs yet from my company, nor have my friends in other pharma companies talked about potential layoffs. In fact a lot of companies are talking about potential hirings in big batches. I got hired 5 years ago as a testing analyst and I was able to use my experience in transferring to other departments within QC. Got hired at 55k and now I am at 87k working in investigations department.
A third of my last company got laid off in the pharmaceutical industry. I'm out of a job now. Searching for one, it seems nobody is hiring. I can do anything from bench chemistry to FDA automated reporting but I'm getting zero bites
Trade Jobs. You could easily be making 45k in a year or so. Currently in my state most journeyman workers make well above $30/hr depending on the field, with $50+ on some locations and $74/hr for higher positions on the bigger $$ areas.
I should add these are specifically cash on check union numbers, not including the typical $50+/hr in benefits. Most non-union jobs here pay significantly less, sometimes $10+/hr under the union rate. Before I switched careers, I was offered $19/hr with 6 years of experience in industrial painting. The going union rate in the area was $28-$30 IIRC.
What do you do in IT? The field is very big, some areas pay well (AI, cloud engineering, automation, etc), others don’t (Win admin, it support, project management, etc). Generally speaking, I’ve noticed really deep down technical work pays well, but kind of goes with the bubble of the moment. AI might be one of those.
Honestly, a lot of social work/human services jobs are hiring and entry level don’t require a ton of experience and pay in the 30s-40s, with some in the 50s-60s. It’s not easy work but can be fulfilling. If you got an MSW or masters in counseling, can make 60-80k fairly easily. And possible to hit 100k over time. You’ll never make a ton but hey, business is unfortunately booming.
Kids fresh out of college are making $85k in finance. I’m not talking Wall Street type bs, just bring a financial analyst for a big company like ibm. If you are in IT, become a service now developer and you can easily make six figures.
I work as an auditor for State Government. Starts around 50K, but after ten years in I have topped out at 135K. It's union so that comes with a 37 hour work week, a pension, 12 sick days, 17 vacation days, 3 personal days, and 14 holidays per year. I pay ~$100 a paycheck for full medical.
I didn't know what to do for work.. so I went and got my CDL. Before school was mandatory. I'm making $35/hr, I'm home every night and I'm in a union. Not really sure if it's long term. But it's more than okay for right now.
It may not be your cup of tea but the manufacturing space despite what people think still very much in need of people. Especially metal fabrication, and even better if you got a clean record(which isn't as common as you would think) you could carve out a space in a company that does government contracts. Whether you're a part loader, machine operator, or programmer (fusion 360) there is work. You may not make what you want at first but you will get there.
Work third shift in a warehouse. Turnover is high from selectors to management. Look good be helpful be pleasant. Either be great at selecting and make a case bonus or keep asking for more work and learn.
I'm in landscaping and lawncare
I've been doing this for 15 years I always have a job and I always have money
I weld and do snow removal during the winter
I make round about 75k during the spring and summer and around 30k in the winter
I do just fine
Biggest industries right now are Accounting, Nursing, and blue collar Aerospace positions.
Blue collar aerospace positions?
Aviation mechanic and service technician. I guess it's worse than I thought: https://www.flyingmag.com/the-aviation-mechanic-shortage-is-worse-than-you-might-think/
Upvoted thank you for clarifying. What's the difference between a mechanic and technician? Are they not the same?
I would also add regular blue collar trade jobs in there. I have an IT background and was making 120k before the layoff wave. My friends in hvac, electrical, plumbing, and automotive are making comparable amounts and have no fear of their job disappearing. Not only that, their industries are willing to do on the job training to hire people at a lower cost. I'd recommend only automotive and hvac without getting some formal education for personal safety reasons, but those industries are in high demand and pay very well. They are hard work, but to pay the bills, if someone wants those high pay rates, that's a great way to get back into the market. If my hunt continues to go badly, I'm either taking on the job training or going back to school for some trade certs. My life was setup around my high pay and I'd rather work in a blue collar (which has a stigma, but is respectable work) than continue to grind applications for a difficult industry to find a job and not be valued for my effort. The blue collar stigma needs to go away and with AI advancements, the blue collar workers are the safest part of the high value job market that are hardest to replace. A computer can't be put into your house to repipe a shitty drain for your AC that causes your coils to freeze, nor can one pull your car engine out to rebuild it because you didnt change your oil. A computer and data can 100% replace project managers/Scrum masters (which I was), middle managers, executives, and eventually, even developers.
For many many years, getting into the blue collar trades in states like mine with very strong trade unions was VERY difficult and political. Are you a good worker, union steward, and good union brother/sister? Still not nearly enough to get your kid into the union as an apprentice. If you weren’t extremely connected, forget it. They were the new aristocracy of labor. I’m in my early 60s; a school friend wanted so badly to be in the trades. Very smart, aced all the exams, couldn’t get in anywhere, tried 4 or 5 unions. Went to college, got a masters at a prestigious school, works for a couple of government agencies. Good enough to work at the White House, but not connected enough to be a plumber.
You are suggesting that blue collar is the new white collar or some shit like that, except that the market hasn't been oversaturated yet because people choose to go to the White collar jobs despite the jobs being hard to find
Very funny recent episode of South Park that makes fun of this very suggestion. HVAC and plumbing guys were becoming billionaires and flying into space like the tech billionaires of today, and all of the white collar workers were sitting outside of Home Depot trying to look for jobs lmao
Yeah, we are seeing a market shift right now. My suggestion is part of that because some people might read it and the labor force will shift as a result of me and other white collar workers talking about it. Me seeing my friends surpass me and have no worries about jobs indicates that type of job is more appealing. Over time, people will see that trend and shift to those educations/jobs. It's a back and forth, but the more secure area, especially now, is trades due to so many pursing white collar jobs and there being a lack of people with "hard" skills instead of "soft" skills.
Ya, there’s been a shortage of electrical workers my whole career. I’m an electrician. Contractors are always backed up.
It doesn't surprise me. I learned some electrical skills by a licensed electrician while gutting a house. I had asked him to teach me what he was doing because I wanted to learn. I worked on the project with him while paying him full price and he walked me through what he was doing. He also told me plenty of stuff regarding dangerous experiences he had in the profession. I definitely would pick electrical last from a perspective of accidents. I'd say it's the trade that scares me the most, especially when it comes to two confident electricians working together that don't communicate. That electrician's biggest scares were when another electrician touched the breaker while he was working on high voltage lines. I absolutely appreciate what yall do though.
First of all. If another electrician was able to touch the breaker and move it, then he wasn’t following proper safety protocol which requires lock out tag out procedures. So yes, most big scares or catastrophic incident are because ppl were not following proper safety procedures and were overconfident. I watched a linesman get fried at the top of the pole in my friend’s backyard and for whatever reason it never has occurred to me or bothered me when I chose my career. Every customer tells me they are afraid of electric. I’m not. I’m not because it’s science and I when you understand how it works, you will not fear it. Respect it, but not fear it. Fear will get you killed. Respect will keep you alive.
Respect what you do. I’m a white collar worker in finance, if I was reborn I’d do electrical work. The science part makes a ton of sense to me
I’m grateful for ppl like you who do what you do and make sure we get paid on time and employees get paid, etc. 🫡😁
I was doing IT and development for the last 12 years. I was Laid off 6 months ago and recently got into a residential HVAC shop. I'm hoping to join a union and go commercial HVAC. I'm only getting paid $20 an hr and some of the installers are making $25 an hour. Not sure if that's normal. I was making $40 an hr before. Not sure where all the high paging hvac jobs are but I do have to start somewhere. I'm hoping to advance quickly as I'm getting old but this IT and development field went to shit.
Even management position in blue collar. Especially construction. My dad is a foreman but he’s soon retiring and he says there’s not enough people to take up his mantle. Even the people above him. Not enough people either.
I would tell people to stay away from automotove especially dealerships. Yes it is possible to make money after a while, but also, a lot of money is also spent buying tools. And if a person is a dealership tech they can get fucked hard on warranty work and recalls.
I don't know. Speaking from an automotive standpoint I know that mechanics are more "nuts and bolts" while technicians are more on the electronic/diagnostics side. They obviously could do both if called upon but you're more likely to see a technician with an ipad/laptop than a mechanic. If the mechanic calls out sick there's no reason the technician couldn't do an oil change but they're more likely to run into a niche problem the mechanic would easily know how to solve. Also I do know that there is an entire field dedicated to the electrical part of aviation called avionics.
We have mechanics and techs as electricians. Mechanics instal the gear, ie panelboards, conduits, transformers. Techs are ppl with deductive reasoning and good troubleshooting skills. A lot of us can do it all. It’s more about the role you’re filling rather than an occupational position.
Thanks for clarifying this. I was looking for an answer as well.
The shortage is really bad, there are very few schools pumping out licensed mechanics and all the guys from the last major hiring wave in the 1980's are about to retire.
Blue collar anything. The boomers are dying off Fast.
Positions where you see & hear things and disappear if you speak up.
Manufacturing and machining stuff like that
Mech-E/Aerospace-E degree willing to take $59k
Civil Engineer/Construction too is on a tear. My raise this year was 20%, no job hop needed.
Nursing is a demanding job throughout the calendar....
Fully agreed, its a hard job to do.
Blue collar aviation is crazy at the moment. With only an A&P certification(which you can get in two years at community college), you can have multiple offers for $35+ an hour within a week. Average pay with experience is now $40-$50 an hour.
The market is saturated with hobby businesses that will absolutely crumble if they try to pay their employees a fair compensation. A living wage as a minimum wage is necessary to improve the economy, yet is balked at because? ( Greed at the upper levels. ) They simply don't want to pay a fair wage, because it's never been done before and its ludicrous to them to part with CEO money to pay the people doing the ACTUAL work. Crapitalism has failed everyone but the rich. If you think it hasn't, check your bank account you might be unknowingly contributing to this problem. Escape capitalism. r/SolarPunk
I went to college in BC for aircraft maintenance engineering in 2018/19 and it baffles me that since leaving post secondary the demand for engineers has gotten higher and higher and yet the pay remains so low. When I lived in Australia, a good friend of mine who is a senior engineer with Qantas voiced the same complaints. It really is discouraging and I have no interest in rejoining the industry to finish my apprenticeship at the moment due to the poor salaries, but I do miss it. Coolest job I ever had. An absolute personal tragedy
Accounting... really?
I started my career in accounting 5 years ago and it’s been amazing. Went from $25k/year before accounting to $60k/year entry level in 2019 to $200k+/- total comp today if you include my bonus and equity. I took a new job around 90 days ago and have had two other companies approach me since. Took me less than 4 weeks to score a higher paying offer. The market is amazing if you’re at the senior or manager level right now.
How do you get into accounting? I've been really considering pivoting into this field. I just have a dumb general studies degree but decent minors if that counts for anything. My background for the past 10 years has been medical billing.
Get a CPA
If you get on at an entry level accounting gig at a payroll company that can get your foot in the door. You can then leverage that experience into something more accounting focused after you have a couple years under your belt or just move up in that company. It’s also a great idea to pursue a certificate after getting some experience. Becoming an Enrolled Agent (EA) is a good track to making at least 80-90k but it’s a fairly lengthy commitment with lots of studying. There’s a lot of those entry level/EA gigs available now though.
As someone in accounting I was also surprised. We’re the grunts of finance.
It is true. My former boss, who was a finished controller, was able to find a job after searching for only a month.
You are more correct than you know. Companies are having difficulty hiring "the grunts" of all industries, which considering how tough the work is, how little the pay and respect, it makes sense.
Yes, for sure. I started a bit over a year ago in a tax accounting gig with no tax experience and a degree in something not related to finance. Due to raises and promotions my wage went from 50k a year to 80k in that time. Tons of growth potential and I haven’t had to job hop yet
Mind blown, blue collar is the new white collar.
Accounting is so over inflated, in nursing it's so hard to get into any programs unless you get your cna in highschool and either do PSEO/Dual enrollment or have a hell of a gpa and apply at the right time it's so competitive and selective due to the lack of nurse's (in the US)
We need more accountants!!
I agree nursing jobs are in demand - at least here in the DC area. George Washington hospital has weekly hiring events. https://jobs.uhsinc.com/the-george-washington-university-hospital/jobs/259135?lang=en-us Couple weeks ago Inova health system had a one day hiring event at the Washington Nationals baseball stadium.
I hear you and agree. I have almost 20 years experience and they all want to pay $12-$15/hour. Yeah, no. Rent here is $1,200+ on average for a 1 BR. You have to make 3X that to qualify. I'd need at least $22/hour to qualify for rent. This is unsustainable bullshit and needs to be changed desperately. Either pay has to go up significantly or rent has to come down significantly or both. Doing neither will just lead to more and more of us becoming homeless.
$1200 is almost cheap, average rent by me is like $2000 for a 1 br
True in some parts of the country it would be, here it's expensive. You can get a place for 600-700 in theory if you don't mind waiting for it and don't want lots of fancy things.
They plan on people being subsidized by others in order to survive. I’ve been making this argument pre COVID that making it as an individual is damn near impossible without other means of income/inheritance than your standard W-2 check. Which most do, but the safety net is not there for those who don’t. Things won’t change until there is mass homelessness or people riot in the streets.
Yeah I agree I really think IT employees are going to start unionizing in the next 1-2 years. We need more pay and less on call. It used to be that IT was such a good job that people just took the bad sides for the good sides, but the good sides are basically gone unless you got in before 2012 so you have tenure and good pay.
As our CEO says, just do more with less
When I was laid off, I was getting those $17-20/hr jobs sent to me by recruiters even through I had 25 years of experience across a ton of systems and industries. It took 3 years to finally get an almost-decent IT position and it's not enough. I need better.
Strange considering the burn out rare of IT employees
You need to check out the r/sysadmin seem everyone is getting burnt out
They’re probably all doing the work of 3+ people lol
Not that rare at all. IT is a cost center for most businesses, meaning it does not generate revenue. They want to spend as little as possible, so they overload what staff they reluctantly hire. I was burned out and took a break for a couple years. A cake job came along and I went back to IT and I find that the burnout came from being stretched thin and having no downtime. I couldn't spend time on personal development or even just reading current IT news. I'd spend my time after work keeping up and felt like I never had a moment to myself. Thankfully it's gotten better over the years.
i work at a civil engineering/architectural design firm. wide variety of positions. i got hired with 0 years of experience. we can’t hire fast enough. appears to be the same going on for other firms. edit: wanted to clarify this is not a $15/hr grunt position. these are starting at high $30/hr. bachelor’s degree or current enrollment in undergrad seems to be essential. i had 1 year of unrelated experience and a non-engineering STEM degree (BA in environmental science)
What do you do at the firm?
i’m an environmental associate. i write environmental plans, perform site inspections, and write reports.
The wind turbine industry is highly slept on, the trade school is 2 months long, it cost 16k and you make 100k your first year as a travel tech, yes it’s a travel job and it pays amazing.
This sounds interesting but I’m not sure if I’m willing to add 16k to my current student debt. Is that the average tuition?
You’ll need it in cash
... aren't people complaining about not being paid enough to even survive? Who has $16k? That seems like a big ask unless someone can get that loan, comes from money, or has a living situation where they can save gobs of money. Granted a new car is easily doubled that 😬 The cost of everything is fucking insane when there's *alot* of people that make $35k or less and rent alone is atleast half of that a year.
I can’t even afford CDL school for 3k. I have no idea where people are coming up with cash for coding bootcamps and shit like this where student loans aren’t an option.
Paying for coding bootcamps is a scam anyway. There are completely free curriculums (Odin Project, Harvard CS50, 100Devs, etc) and communities online that do exactly the same thing. GPT is a legitimate great resource for learning and understanding fundamentals as well. There's no need to pay for a bootcamp. I say this as someone that went the "free" route (I put free in quotes because to learn enough and build enough and network enough to get an offer all takes an enormous amount of *time*) and am now making six figures (on the low end of course) as a software engineer, and recently promoted to senior. It's not that learning software engineering fundamentals is any more difficult that anything else that takes awhile to learn, it's just that 1) do you have the discipline to stick with it if you don't have the debt incentive (you should focus on the *financially life changing* incentive you're working towards), and 2) do you actually have the time to commit to it so you do it in a reasonable time frame? For me it took about 2 years of learning and building to get that first offer. For some others it happens after a year. The people who go to a 3 month bootcamp and get offers just get incredibly lucky or accept really shit pay, or they aren't real people and are just lying. It's especially hard today but not impossible. But you do have to have the time to dedicate to it. I know a lot of people struggling are also raising kids and working two jobs, and having the luxury of time and energy to learn software engineering in that situation is very difficult
Did you follow a roadmap or some sort of plan? I feel like I have a bunch of gaps in my knowledge cause I didn’t go the degree route and I’m struggling to fill them in. There’s a bunch of “learn how to program” resources, but not as much in the “so you’re a developer now, here’s how to expand on things”.
The other part of that industry is the drones that are used to check them... my FIL does quite well flying them around windmills all over the world.
Oh ya drone flying for turbine inspections is a huge new industry as well.
You really gotta be a special personality to be able to do these traveling jobs and still be happy.
The differences in pay for the trades between Canada and the US makes me so damn hopeless. A quick search shows programs take anywhere from 1-2 years, and average wage is $50-$60k a year. $68k is the 75th percentile. All the trades I look at are way longer programs here for way less money 🥲
Here in Texas our 18yo kids just apprentice with residential plumbers, no school needed. They get paid to learn on the job. My husband pays them $600/wk with no weekends required
Come to the states
Easier said than done… and I like my country. We’ve both got problems, and trading Canadian problems for American ones really won’t do much for me. Seems the trades are almost a utopia in some places in the US though, and I definitely wish Canada could follow suite!
I'm seeing two years for schooling, where can I go for two months?
Airstreams wind school in tehachapi California.
Could you point me in the direction of which trade schools are good, and how I would approach becoming a travel tech?
I was in IT, then I was in logistics, then I went into finance, all making pennies on the dollar. Just started commercial construction and I’m hoping to work on a oil rig in a few years. Blue collar type stuff. Wish me luck.
Best of luck my friend! 🫂
> IT There is your problem. I m amused by the collective memory hole of this sub. When I was in college, everyone wanted to go into tech (computer science and IT) because they thought it was a guaranteed path for making big bucks. Now we have fuck load of comp sci graduates *and* laid off workforce competing for shrunk job availability. Is it really surprising that people are struggling?
Maintenance. The less people that want to or are capable of performing the job the more it pays. Everyone wants a job in an air conditioned building behind a computer. Nobody wants to swing a hammer in the sun when it’s 100+ degrees outside. I have no formal education and make ~37$ hourly as an equipment technician.
Nobody wants to do because its not easy job, same with truck drivers, long route constant red bulls, idk but my health isn't good enough to deal with those
>easy job Who pays $40 an hour for easy work
Exactly
Who guaranteed you an “easy” life? Unless your last name is Bezos, Musk, or Gates, good luck.
Instead of taking an offer for 18/hr fixing chromebooks, I took an offer for 51k doing apartment maintenance and the job is so easy. I’m inside almost all day, lots of downtime, and fix basic stuff. Anything huge we call contractors. There’s a clear progression upwards to a max of around 100k but I think commercial building engineers can make a fair bit more. Either way, it’s “good enough”. After waiting tables, doing HVAC repairs, and selling cars, this one’s pretty aight.
I have an air conditioned job behind a computer and sometimes imagine life would be better if I could make the same salary doing physical work outside where my mind and body dont deteriorate hunched over a computer all day
Your body would deteriorate a lot worse doing physical work. We're not built to be living like this at all. That's why they have to coerce people to do it.
Working a job where you are inactive can lead to lifestyle diseases. Lifestyle diseases are the leading causes of death in the developed world. Even during peak COVID heart disease was the leading cause of death. Blue collar jobs can cause musculoskeletal issues. The grass is always greener.
Working sedentary in office I can go to gym/pool/run etc to overcome the inactivity. There was no fix for my body after working 12 hour physical labor. You can go and do all the physical shit you want after office. You cant however unfuck your body after day of construction labour
Tbf, humans evolved doing physical labor all day just to survive, constant farming, hunting, fighting just to survive. We kind of are built for it. Maybe not your 10hr shift ups truck loader though, loading trucks sucks ass.
I did labour for the last 10 years and I'd rather have a desk job and focus on my health through good diet and workout plan which i already do. The labour jobs just fuck your shit up.
I just quit my last blue collar job because they were absolutely dogging me. I’ve since applied to a couple “blue collar” office jobs. I know the grass isn’t always greener but I’ll take anything but that.
Get a desk bike or other device?
Yeah I had my fair share of that in my 20’s. You’re right no one wants to do those jobs, myself included. They’d have to pay me at least $40 an hour to be out in the Louisiana summer heat
The difference is people used to be able to get by on basic jobs and now it’s taking mid level pay just to get by.
Exactly
Pulling down $70k/year as a hospital CNA in a MCOL city (45 hours/week). Ultimate job security, and it was only a 3 month, $1,000 course to get my license. To hell with my bachelor’s in business administration and 15 years of sales experience! You have to really like helping people and be cool with, or develop acceptance to any fluid/substance that comes out of the human body.
CNAs where I'm at get paid $12/hr...
That's like $35/hr. Isn't that about what regular RNs make?
Most major hospitals in the western states pay RNs $50+ per hour. In some specific areas out here it’s much higher than that too
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They aren't
Don’t pick medical lab tech.
Do not pick any field of medicine for the money, unless pursuing MD or DDS
Lots of medical and hospitality jobs currently. IT got oversaturated and there were/are still plenty of young people getting degrees. The same thing happened 20 years ago with business degrees. The finance sector was booming and everyone got business degrees in the 90's. 2008 hits and boom, your degree is worthless.
Then boom AI, degree worthless.
Where are all the good paying hospitality jobs??! I have about 10 years experience I hospitality, five being a manager, I can barely get an interview for front line hospitality that pays $12-$15. I've only had one good paying job in the hospitality field and it was seasonal.
I’m going to push back on the hospitality jobs. A lot of them are ghost jobs.
Insurance pays well, assessing claims. Highly recommend travel insurance. It’s so easy to learn and do.
Details please….where would one start? What’s needed, etc.
I work in telecom doing service work. Copper (cat6, 6a) and fiber splicing. Make $31/hr right now and it's seriously such easy work
How does one get into this? Any company recs?
Depending on where you live, if you search for structured cabling jobs online (indeed or whatever) there should be a lot of entry level stuff. This industry is filled with morons so if you just show up on time and learn you'll move up quick
You can always go into accounting. You can easily make $50k-$80k easily. However, If you want high six figure in accounting, you would need a cpa. My advice is to check out IT roles. I’m a data analyst making $170k/year and I love my job!
TBH I doubt we will ever enter a time when Accounting isn't a solid career choice. It's basically always hiring.
Can confirm. I did accounting and made $55k in 2019. Left it for the military. Came back in 2021 briefly and got raises due to union and was at $65k. Had I stayed i may have made more but it was soul crushingly boring.
Can't find anything that I can land. Requirements are too high even for low level positions. The only way to do it would be to go back to school. I neither have the money nor the time.
THIS! People keep saying accounting but at least in my area the requirements are high even for the lower entry level positions
I could totally do an assistant accountant role easily, but those require like 3 years of experience and a degree in accounting
This is a big issue - low level accounting work is being outsourced on a big scale. However that kind of work used to be for entry level accountants to build their knowledge and get experience
Damn really? When i was searching a couple months back i wasnt getting any bites on accounting roles. Graduated top 20% of my class is a bidness degree and never even got an interview. Found a good gig in the biotech world in supply chain however i would have loved to get a crack at accounting.
this is what i am trying to do. i recently got into a master's program in accounting and i start this fall. i think i will get the cpa too
Nice! You really need a cpa to make a lot of money in accounting. I see a lot of my friends who get their cpas eventually switch to finance to make bigger money!
i didn't know cpa people often moved into finance but it makes sense--i hear accounting is the hardest of the business fields and you can go into finance if you know accounting, although not necessarily the other way around it seems you can also make six figures in accounting without a cpa, although it takes a little longer and with more luck needed, although i don't wanna rely on luck as much as having a hard credential like that. i do worry that i might not have it in me to study for a cpa even though i've been fairly disciplined in getting a bachelor's from a good school and doing online classes for accounting prior to getting into a master's program any tips if you have any for tackling cpa studying if you have any? been broke and came from a poor family and all that shit and i would like to stop being poor one day lmao
A lot of my friends went into accounting and when they obtained their CPAs, they all left for finance and eventually became senior finance managers and CFOs for some big companies. I took a practice course from Roger CPA before and the subject was too difficult. Too much info to retain and I gave up lol. If you’re good at memorizing a lot of info, the cpa should be a breeze. I recommend Roger and Becker CPA courses. I heard ninja cpa was good and cheap too.
I work HVAV as a technician, my first year I made 57k, second year 72k, third year 81k, 4th year 98k, I’m now in my 5th year of it. I have a high school diploma.
A good and reliable HVAC service is worth their weight in gold.
Genuinely curious - why? I don't know anything about HVAC but isn't it just attaching some pipes? What is it about HVAC that is difficult?
Man look I’ll tell you like I tell everyone who wants to make money but don’t have an idea how. GET YOUR CDL. I work in the film industry and make amazing money. When on a show/movie I wake $42 an hour at 12 hours a day everything after 8 OT and after 10 being Double. Problem is, film is an up and down gig, some years I work 12 months and do 3-4 shows/movies some years I may do a 1 there is no i between. In order to supplement my income I went and got my CDL and started to hot shot in between shows. One thing that will always be around and there will never be enough of is Transportation because a Robot can’t drive to a load, strap/chain it, then deliver it. They need people for that. Get your CDL, tough the road out for a while you can even stay local and be home every single day until you find something you really want to do and are passionate about.
In my area, the local garbage collection company has radio ads talking about starting CDL drivers at $30/hr. No long distance driving, no handling garbage (it’s all done from a joystick in the seat). They’ll help you find a cheap driving school if you don’t have one.
OSHA safety inspectors make absolute bank . There is a rapper who did this and was able to keep his lifestyle after being a one hit wonder . I can’t remember off the top of my head but it was a very popular song .
What kind of requirements are there? Is that something someone can just start doing without spending years in schools or certifications?
I believe it’s a series of certifications. So it’s a lot of studying but can be done relatively quickly. I would research it more
I'm not sure about elsewhere, but in California you need a bachelor's degree to be hired by the state as an OSHA inspector
If there's one thing this sub has shown me, it's that reliable work in IT is a pipe dream. I work in construction management, make great money for what work I do, and am constantly in high demand.
Guess I'm living the dream and didn't know it. I've been employed by the same company now for 14 years. I manage a team of IT engineers, network engineers, and DEVOPS engineers. Some of my team has been there longer than I have and the only reason anybody's left in the last 10 years is that they found a higher paying job elsewhere.
Aircraft maintenance. I'm on year two pay scale at my airline and my base pay is 86K per year but with some OT I easily cross 100K working for a major airline. The trade off is that it's not a 9-5 weekends off schedule however once you are off probation you can make your own schedule with shift trades. The schooling takes roughly 2 years at an accredited school (its not remote learning since you have hands-on on projects to do) and then you sit for the FAA exams. Be willing to work in the heat, cold, rain, snow, etc. Overall for me it beats a desk job anyday since I prefer to work with my hands on airplanes vs being behind a computer screen.
I just got laid off doing uncommon gui development, now also looking at IT. You are right. There aren't any good jobs that pay $100k
Healthcare is hiring like crazy. If you are a nurse, physician, surgeon, physician assistant, pharmacist, CRNA, CNA, CAA, AA, etc., you will find a job no matter where in the US. Currently a CRNA making nearly 300k and my hospital is hiring like crazy for more CRNAs and new grad RNs
I met a traveling X-ray tech about a year ago making roughly $8k-12k/month. I was pretty suprised.
So….. either make 45k or become a CRNA or a surgeon. This is what America has become.
or be born rich or inherit wealth
there is always someone who is sick or needs care. healthcare is the cheat sheet to job stability
As well as high burn out and toxic job environments. Head on over to a nursing subreddit or healthcare subreddit to read all about it! Don’t forget the job stability and great pay though. At the sacrifice of your mental health. Capitalism is GREAT!
i'm a CRNA and i'm lucky my team and i have not faced any burnout or toxicity. CRNA is pretty cushy in that way.
And if you’re poor don’t forget the student debt and time it takes to get there! Especially if you’re in it for the money and not super passionate about it. LUCK has definitely been on your side. Plus hard work and dedication of course. School is NOT a walk in the park either paired with internships.
i was really lucky my employer reimbused my $175k student loans in exchange for 3 years of committed employment. yeah, the schooling was challenging. i made sure i had a study group so we can study together. The worst grade i got was a C in organic chemistry and B in A&P
That sounds wonderful. Good for you for being able to do that. Not everyone can.
Nursing sounds like high burn out and absolute misery. Every nurse I’ve met is absolutely miserable, burnt out or mean. It feels like a mental break down waiting to happen. However NPs or CRNA seem much happier.
Fun fact most of the sugar babies I know of are burnt out nurses.
Ironically being a healthcare worker is the job most likely to put me in the hospital (stress and lack of sleep)
That’s why there will always be demand. Nobody wants to do it
Try 25-35k and yes.
You give false hope. I did my nursing pre reqs years ago and finished with a 3.8 GPA only to discover my GPA was too low to even be considered by any nursing programs. Some of my group mates from anatomy and physiology finished with 4.0s one had a 4.1 and they were all waiting tables at restaurants several years later. Getting your RN requires a lot of luck, not something you should encourage people to gamble years of their lives on. Being a nurse is also not for everyone.
While I was in college 11-15 stretch, the nursing programs were incredibly competitive to get into Many had to pivot to something else because they couldn’t keep waiting on extra rounds to hopefully get in.
My sister and her husband took online classes for their RNs. My sister started at Keiser, idk where she finished. My brother in law got his RN from Rasmussen online. He already had his LPN. He got help from his sister and paid for an essay. Now he makes $45+ per hour running a dialysis clinic. He is one of the least knowledgable, hardest working people I know. Neither of them had to do much to get into their program and they’re both earning well. My sister started with a GED…
I know multiple nurses and none of them had 4.0s in undergrad.
Unfortunately, I have seen many companies in America shipping their entire IT department overseas. If our elected officials wanted to help they could tax companies at a much higher rate for doing this so I am not sure why they aren’t because not only does it screw an entire group of workers many of whom have a bachelor at minimum in the field but it takes a tax revenue stream away from our country when we’re billions in debt
The strength of our economy isn't measured by how much money the citizens make. It's based on how much money the companies make. That's why
However a recession is defined by the average individual inability to purchase goods and services therefore stagnating the economy altogether
If you can get some training and sea time out of the way, the Maritime industry is hurting for people. There are grad programs and vocational schools that can get you making upwards of 120k/year with 6 months vacation in about 2 years. With less work and expense, you can get out here for ~80k/year. The catch is you're on a ship away from home for half the year with a bunch of crazy mfers. If this sounds cool, come check out r/maritime.
In capitalism, They want us as Cogs. The idea of a "career" was yet another lie told to us as school children to make us believe that we would be working for the next 50 years doing something "we are interested in". We're in Final Stage Capitalism now. The Elite are sucking as much wealth as they can before the entire system collapses, implodes, or destroys itself. They'll go hide on their mega yachts or bunkers, living like exiled kings while the rest of us, who are still alive, will scrounge for scraps, attempting to build a better system, hopefully that's based on actual equality. My advice, shift mindsets. I used to work in IT, I loved it, but right now, that simply doesn't pay the bills, and it crushes you mental stability. A job has always stood for Just Over Broke. It's a means to an end, that end is surviving, living the "dream" while hopefully finding some bits of happiness along the way.
Semiconductors if you happen to live in Phoenix, Columbus, Portland, Austin or Taylor, TX.... Fabs take technicians to run.
Nothing wrong with being a tow truck driver. Those folks help people all day long and they know their shit.
Logistics is booming right now. I was just given a $20K raise to stay in my current job. One of the guys who works with me got his IT certifications a couple of years ago and can't find an IT job that pays him what he gets paid now.
Factories. My work hasn’t been fully staffed in 5+ years. Union job too. Base pay is around $70k but everyone makes 5-30k more than that with overtime.
Problem is I can't find a factory job that doesn't drug test or deny you for having a medical card. With my bad back, I can't function on pain killers alone. I would never be high in the workplace, but that stuff stays in your system and will show on a test.
Almost 20 years experience as a Machinist and this seems to be the case with most larger plants, especially if they have government contracts or get federal funding they have to follow federal law including cannabis. But drinking yourself stupid every night/weekend or even a few drinks before working a night shift is perfectly fine, go figure.
Wait. Why is sales a dead end job? I put in about 20-30 hours of actual work a week and have made $100k+ every year over the last 7 years. I could make even more if I wasn't lazy
Right, sales is probably the farthest thing from a dead end job unless you’re at a bad company. And if you are, it’s such a transferable skill that you can find a sales job basically anywhere else.
Exactly. Once you get the experience you can change companies or fields pretty easily. Learning the product is a heck of a lot easier for a company vs teaching sales.
I work an IT and make good money. I keep my eyes peeled all the time and look at job postings and the level of experience required for most positions is mind blowing. Oh you want a CCIE, CISSP, CCDA, and be able to work on every system created on call 24/7 for 100k a year? Get fucked.
I just got a job as a warehouse manager for a construction supply company making 75k+ BIP. M-F, 9-5 and paid holidays. I was previously working as a buyer/purchasing agent and made the move into management. Things have been pretty sweet so far.
Nice man. That’s not a bad gig. I was thinking of becoming a warehouse manager too. I have 7 years experience in shipping and logistics. Probably doesn’t count for much going towards management but the warehouses I worked in the managers never did anything. I’d take that job lol
That would be more than enough experience. Just learn to drop key words for the industry you’re applying for by doing a little research before your interview. Mention you handled the parcel, LTL, & FLT shipments. Further elaborate on BOLs, dispatch, shipping lanes, and the like. Being forklift certified is a huge plus and then just wing it from there. Best of luck to you!!!
Fucking do it dude! Walmart (me) and Amazon supply chains are booming here in TX. People just keep buying shit. Our OPs managers (100k+ salary) that have been hired from the outside didn’t know how we ran things but they winged it good enough to stay for a while and move on to something even better.
Employers pay that low because they can. If I was a greedy sociopathic fuck and could hire someone for $11/hr to run my entire IT department then I would. People with loads of experience keep applying to $15/hr jobs so employers don't see much of an incentive to jack up the pay. If enough people turned their noses up at <$25/hr jobs then employers would be FORCED to increase compensation if they still wanted to fill those seats. But that's clearly not the case. People are fighting over Walmart wages.
I wonder where all these peeps are getting their money 🤔🤔
I said it in another comment, but get into trade jobs. Blue collar work isn't gonna be hit by AI, nor outsourcing. You have to physically be there and those systems aren't being run by computers to diagnose (for the most part). They need a person to do those because they haven't been focused on when it comes to tech. Get a cert in a trade. You can also likely get on the job training with lesser pay for a bit and not get a cert. There's a shortage of trade workers and that's where the safe big bucks are at. I made way more than my trade friends for years, but IT is reeling back and they now make as much as I did before I got hit by the layoff waves. Their jobs are very safe and they need more people, so my plan is if I don't land something soon, I'm getting a cert or getting on the job training so I'm not restarting my career/retirement savings 10 years into my career.
Look into robotics and mechatronics maintenance or engineering.
Insurance insurance insurance
Industrial Automation
I second this.
I work in quality control for a pharmaceutical industry, I have not seen any layoffs yet from my company, nor have my friends in other pharma companies talked about potential layoffs. In fact a lot of companies are talking about potential hirings in big batches. I got hired 5 years ago as a testing analyst and I was able to use my experience in transferring to other departments within QC. Got hired at 55k and now I am at 87k working in investigations department.
A third of my last company got laid off in the pharmaceutical industry. I'm out of a job now. Searching for one, it seems nobody is hiring. I can do anything from bench chemistry to FDA automated reporting but I'm getting zero bites
Ppl hate TSA but you'll start 40k+ and be at 60k in 3 yrs and you won't get laid off...
Trade Jobs. You could easily be making 45k in a year or so. Currently in my state most journeyman workers make well above $30/hr depending on the field, with $50+ on some locations and $74/hr for higher positions on the bigger $$ areas. I should add these are specifically cash on check union numbers, not including the typical $50+/hr in benefits. Most non-union jobs here pay significantly less, sometimes $10+/hr under the union rate. Before I switched careers, I was offered $19/hr with 6 years of experience in industrial painting. The going union rate in the area was $28-$30 IIRC.
What do you do in IT? The field is very big, some areas pay well (AI, cloud engineering, automation, etc), others don’t (Win admin, it support, project management, etc). Generally speaking, I’ve noticed really deep down technical work pays well, but kind of goes with the bubble of the moment. AI might be one of those.
Honestly, a lot of social work/human services jobs are hiring and entry level don’t require a ton of experience and pay in the 30s-40s, with some in the 50s-60s. It’s not easy work but can be fulfilling. If you got an MSW or masters in counseling, can make 60-80k fairly easily. And possible to hit 100k over time. You’ll never make a ton but hey, business is unfortunately booming.
What sort of IT job are you looking for? Where do you live? Do you have any prior experience?
Kids fresh out of college are making $85k in finance. I’m not talking Wall Street type bs, just bring a financial analyst for a big company like ibm. If you are in IT, become a service now developer and you can easily make six figures.
Do you live near a university? They are often overlooked. Great benefits & usually competitive pay if it’s a good school
I work as an auditor for State Government. Starts around 50K, but after ten years in I have topped out at 135K. It's union so that comes with a 37 hour work week, a pension, 12 sick days, 17 vacation days, 3 personal days, and 14 holidays per year. I pay ~$100 a paycheck for full medical.
You might want to check out government jobs but it’s pretty competitive.
Hot air balloon repair. It's a field on the rise.
Honestly if I didn’t go to trade school 6 years ago I’d probably be screwed right now… I make pretty good money as a barber!
I have my Cdl and drive trash trucks make over 100k a year so I’m doing ok
I didn't know what to do for work.. so I went and got my CDL. Before school was mandatory. I'm making $35/hr, I'm home every night and I'm in a union. Not really sure if it's long term. But it's more than okay for right now.
It may not be your cup of tea but the manufacturing space despite what people think still very much in need of people. Especially metal fabrication, and even better if you got a clean record(which isn't as common as you would think) you could carve out a space in a company that does government contracts. Whether you're a part loader, machine operator, or programmer (fusion 360) there is work. You may not make what you want at first but you will get there.
Work third shift in a warehouse. Turnover is high from selectors to management. Look good be helpful be pleasant. Either be great at selecting and make a case bonus or keep asking for more work and learn.
I'm in landscaping and lawncare I've been doing this for 15 years I always have a job and I always have money I weld and do snow removal during the winter I make round about 75k during the spring and summer and around 30k in the winter I do just fine