Wanna Make the Big Bucks? Bring Back Shop Class

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Real interesting editorial in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday by Josh Mandel, the treasurer of the State of Ohio. The headline was a real attention getter: Welders Make $150,000? Bring Back Shop Class.

From the editorial:

   Too many young people have four-year liberal arts degrees, are thousands of dollars in debt and find themselves serving coffee at Starbucks or working part-time at the mall. Many of them would have been better off with a two-year skilled-trade or technical education that provides the skills to secure a well paying job.
   A good trade to consider: welding. I recently visited Pioneer Pipe in the Utica and Marcellus shale area of Ohio and learned that last year the company paid 60 of its welders more than $150,000 and two of its welders over $200,000.
   According to the 2011 Skills Gap Survey by the Manufacturing Institute, about 600,000 manufacturing jobs are unfilled nationally because employers can't find qualified workers. To help produce a new generation of welders, pipe-fitters, electricians, carpenters, machinists and other tradesmen, high schools should introduce students to the pleasure and pride they can take in making and building things in shop class.

The editorial mentions a few things that are being done to promote vocational education in Ohio. Some are pretty easily accomplished - making school counselors more aware of the need for skilled craftsmen and putting up posters for career training schools along side the ones for Ivy League schools. Others are a little more difficult because of the money involved - funding a skilled trades ambassador to visit high schools and a million dollar donation for equipment upgrades at a career center.

It's nice to see the trades getting the recognition it deserves and to see that the skilled craftsmen are getting some serious compensation for their labor. I would assume a welder making $150K is putting in a lot of overtime and is very highly skilled. If it wasn't for the fact that I'm semi-retired, I'd consider booming out and try to land one of those big money jobs. That and the fact they would actually expect you to produce and I don't want anything to do with that anymore. I'm pretty sure I can still pass a 6G pipe test, however.