Friday, April 25, 2014

Wanna Make the Big Bucks? Bring Back Shop Class


Photo From Here
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.

 


1 comment:

leroy99 said...

Its talk like this that makes me wanna pull up!!! Actually not but very true I wish I had more guys that would truly take pride in the work they put out and want to learn. You should swing by on Mon and see the monster we built for athletics it takes up half the shop!