The great lie of skilled trades is that you get an apprenticeship, get paid to learn your trade for 4 years, then go to work at amazing wages.
A tiny minority get hired off the street with no experience. Almost a non-existent minority. Most journeymen of the past 30 years who got hired without connections put themselves through a 2 or 3 year college program just to get their foot in the door, then depending on the trade either just get to work or start an apprenticeship. For voluntary trades, they then just work for 4 years and get their time and skills signed off then challenge the trade exam.
The really dirty little secret of skilled trades is that apprenticeships are very rare, and they are almost always used as a political chip. The people who end up getting apprenticeships without a higher education first are usually politically appointed. Either they're the children of important people, or they're part of a specific politically important class of people. In Union plants all over the world, you see a lot of 50-year-old apprentices, which is facially ridiculous. They get the job because they're members of the Union.
The solution to this problem is a whole bunch of apprenticeships tons of them. Enough to hire all the political hires, all the people who worked hard in college to get their opportunities, and then a bunch of random people off the street. Bring in all kinds of people, and then fire most of them because most people don't have the basic competence or temperament to be skilled tradesmen, and you'd have a lot more journeyman on the other side. It would ultimately be good for business and good for industry, though it would be very bad for individual tradesmen since the supply would be way up so wages would likely go down, but it would be better for the long term health of industry in the first world.
A tiny minority get hired off the street with no experience. Almost a non-existent minority. Most journeymen of the past 30 years who got hired without connections put themselves through a 2 or 3 year college program just to get their foot in the door, then depending on the trade either just get to work or start an apprenticeship. For voluntary trades, they then just work for 4 years and get their time and skills signed off then challenge the trade exam.
The really dirty little secret of skilled trades is that apprenticeships are very rare, and they are almost always used as a political chip. The people who end up getting apprenticeships without a higher education first are usually politically appointed. Either they're the children of important people, or they're part of a specific politically important class of people. In Union plants all over the world, you see a lot of 50-year-old apprentices, which is facially ridiculous. They get the job because they're members of the Union.
The solution to this problem is a whole bunch of apprenticeships tons of them. Enough to hire all the political hires, all the people who worked hard in college to get their opportunities, and then a bunch of random people off the street. Bring in all kinds of people, and then fire most of them because most people don't have the basic competence or temperament to be skilled tradesmen, and you'd have a lot more journeyman on the other side. It would ultimately be good for business and good for industry, though it would be very bad for individual tradesmen since the supply would be way up so wages would likely go down, but it would be better for the long term health of industry in the first world.
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