No new blood.

[tangle tooth]

      I've been in some discussions lately about the lack of young people getting in to some fields of work. Some are concerning.
      At several electrical code classes, we've discussed the lack of younger electricians. In one class there were about 80 people there. As I recall, there were 12 of us that were retired, about 30 or so in their 50's, most of the rest in their 30's and 40's. I think there were 3 guys in their 20's. All electricians were men. The only women there were architects and attorneys.
      When I was a facilities maintenance engineer, we had the same issues.
      When I worked at an ethanol plant, young people liked the pay but would not work a job where working 12 hour shifts on holidays, weekends and nights was mandatory.
      Have any of you seen this problem, too?
      Where are the young people? What fields are they getting in to?

[glenn57]

most dont want to or are willing to do hard manual labor...part of it i blame on high schools.

when i was in the union office for the Boilermakers, they'd have apprenticeship signups every month. most where young ..being 25 and younger.  the last few years we seen 45 and up coming in. problem is they'd called 30 people,20 would show up and by the time the first 2 weeks of classes where finished you'd have 10 left, for various reasons.....they did surprise drug tests!!!!!

[Steve-o]

They all all taught to follow their bliss. 

[mike89]

now a days they want it free...   just sayin....

[LPS]

The problem is simple.  Kids now don't have to go shovel sidewalks to make a few bucks or mow lawns.  Mon and Dad are the problem.  SO they didn't learn anything there about taking care of themselves and making money and those are important work hard for money lessons.  ALSO Mom and Dad don't do squat to teach kids anything mechanical or common sense like working on a bicycle for starters and maybe a cheap car to get around with.  That is the common denominator in kids now having no common sense or abilities to fix or fix up something or work hard.  They are all given everything they need or at least a lot of them.  My hat is off to those with good work ethics and that is a hard long lesson. 

[Boar]

I agree, parents give everything, alot of schools dont have secondary classes. I went to high school and we had a choice of woodshop, electronics, drafting, welding, small engin, and desile mexhanics. To give us a intrest beside college. Now its hockey and maybe CAD, SOME small districts still have shop class.  But from my highschool, if you graduated you could further yur secondary education at the local AVTI, in carpentry, welding electronics electrician wher part of the requiremnet was to do a lengjt of time on the job learning. This is a all gone. Due in part off what brings money into tue tue educational program. So its a much larger picture than just parents bit it starts ther.

[glenn57]

I'm not sure if it's still a huge issue but back in the day high schools pushed college. No trades, no votech schools. NOT everyone is cut out for 4 year college.

I do see now a bigger push for votechs, and apprenticeship programs.

I couldn't tell you if our high school has shop classes anymore. That be a shame.

The last 5 years I was down at the union hall I did see an influx of gals go through which I thought was awesome 👍

[Leech~~]

     
 The only women there were architects and attorneys.
     
 Where are the young people? What fields are they getting in to?

As far as women and all their yelling about equality.   

When was the last time you ever saw a "cart girl" at -10 below at any shopping center? 
When was the last time you ever had Jane the "Roto-Rooter girl" cleaning your drains? 
When was the last time you ever had Lilly-the "cable girl" fixing your cable or dish?   
When was the last time you saw "Pam the Plumbs"-crack, bent under your sink?   
When was the last time you ever saw Sally the power company gal climbing a power pole? 

On and on you get the picture.  They only want the pay, not all the job opportunities that are available!   

[LPS]

Yes and kids that didn't want PE or metal shop or wood shop whined until those were all gone.  The most important things for some kids to be exposed to and they discontinued them.  In the last few years LOW Schools spent a lot of money are rebuilt a very nice welding lab.  My hat is off to them for that.  By now we know that college which is a great thing is not for everyone and should not be for everyone.  We are losing our service and trades mentalities.  We need to get that back. 

[snow1]

      I've been in some discussions lately about the lack of young people getting in to some fields of work. Some are concerning.
      At several electrical code classes, we've discussed the lack of younger electricians. In one class there were about 80 people there. As I recall, there were 12 of us that were retired, about 30 or so in their 50's, most of the rest in their 30's and 40's. I think there were 3 guys in their 20's. All electricians were men. The only women there were architects and attorneys.
      When I was a facilities maintenance engineer, we had the same issues.
      When I worked at an ethanol plant, young people liked the pay but would not work a job where working 12 hour shifts on holidays, weekends and nights was mandatory.
      Have any of you seen this problem, too?
      Where are the young people? What fields are they getting in to?

Agreed TT,all last summer I tried to get work done at my house I wasn't able to do in order to sell my house,from carpenters to painters,one independant carpenter came out in his mid 50's told me he couldn't find grunts in they're 20-30's to learn the trades,flooring guys/company's the same.guessing the roofing companies are flush with latino roofers these days,they work hard and do good work from what I've seen.

But the trades as a whole are missing intermediate employees these days.

[Cooperman]

This is why we need more immigrants!

[Jerkbiat]

This is why we need more immigrants!

Legal Immigrants. Not illegal.

[snow1]

Down side having certain immigrants legal or illegal,after we had a tornado rip thru our small town of hugo years back,our neighborhod was filled with contractors and a immigrant work force.

weeks later when the dust settled our town had a rash of burglaries,our county police set up surveillance,this was long before doorbell video security...

turns out the roofing crews returned to help themselves,cop told me these workers watched family members leave they're homes everyday for work,houses were vacant and easy pickens,they nabbed 80 plus immigrants in one month breaking into homes.

[Dotch]

And I'll toss my $.02 worth in about the rural kids. The days of having to get out of bed and do chores every day are a distant memory in most cases even for their parents. Contract hog or turkey feeding is about as real as it gets. Pretty cake as opposed to milking cows twice a day like roony did or birthing lambs like we did. Most like to drive tractor but physical labor like baling hay & picking rocks? Ain't gonna happen in most cases. Even driving tractor, some of them won't do it unless the tractor has autosteer. They're gonna be in deep doo-doo when their sweetie pie wants a horse and they need to back a hayrack of bales in the shed before it gets rained on! What'll they do, call some old fart like me to do it for them? The work ethic, while not totally gone, is a pale imitation of its former self. Poor communicators too, sometimes on purpose. Have learned to use their cell phones as communication weapons at a young age. I'd like to see them banned in schools so kids learn how to actually talk to people. Heaven forbid anything disrupt their social calendar. A lot of lazy, self centered, spoiled brats and silver spooners who have never known tough times. There are some exceptions but they are just that, not the rule.

[glenn57]

  i agree Dotch........back in my union thug days i visited 8 shops......these where all big heavy steel welding shops. ALOT of hard hand labor not  every machine can handle. i seen some pretty good young kids come in and go right to it, but i also seen some pretty worthless ones too!!!!!

[snow1]

Dotch,so this is where our youngens are heading eh?

back in the mid 90's pheasant hunting in central nebraska,one farm had young hard working boyz Ill never forget,8-10 year old boyz cleaning the hog pens with a skid steer before school,yes sir no sir respected the elders... after school I grabbed them for bird hunting after football practice,they loved it.how times have changed.

[glenn57]

Dotch,so this is where our youngens are heading eh?

back in the mid 90's pheasant hunting in central nebraska,one farm had young hard working boyz Ill never forget,8-10 year old boyz cleaning the hog pens with a skid steer before school,yes sir no sir respected the elders... after school I grabbed them for bird hunting after football practice,they loved it.how times have changed.

you needed someone who could shot straight!!!!!!!! just poking ya snow!!!!!

[markn]

I was hired on July 18,1984 at my last job. I was 24 at the time. There were at least 10 people applying for any one position at this employer at that time. I got lucky....and had some previous experience. When I retired (quit) on August 2020 they were hiring people off the street for about two to three dollars less than I was making at that time and I had worked several different positions and had a lot of knowledge in them. Some of them didn't know the difference between crap and fat meat, but they were hired anyway. My point is, and sad to say, is our younger folks are happy sitting in a Lazy Boy and demanding a 100K year job right out of the box and getting away with it. "The gov. checks in the mail until I get what I want". Sad.