You see, Votech, for all the mockery it receives, actually is more productive now I would have to say than your average bachelors degree. The reason why is votech is specifically designed to teach you a skill or a trade that is useful to society. You morons out there getting your "bachelors in crayon drawings" are merely a waste of resources and is why there is an education bubble.
Until these lines are inversed you can expect to continue to enjoy the decline.
Although I agree that the whole business is a bubble, i do feel some sympathy for the young people who choose school, because the alternative is so unappealing- low wage jobs with stagnant real wage growth. They can at least put off this dreary reality for four or so years. My father, after graduating from high school only, immediately got jobs that allowed him to shortly have a good life- owning new cars, buying houses, etc. Try that now straight out of hs. I think the uni bubble would partly unwind on its own if there were appealing options for employment after hs, rather than the wasteland that it seems to be now.
ReplyDeleteSkilled trade people also make quite a bit of money.
ReplyDeleteThere is an over supply of white collar workers in North America, because of the education system. This means the pay rates are low, and usually include very long hours.
Meanwhile the shortage of skilled workers continues, so their pay packages keep increasing. In Fort McMurray Alberta, and many Western Australian mining towns, they have to recruit workers from all over the globe. Making over $200,000 a year is not uncommon, for many mine workers.
Compare that to sitting in a cubicle making $40K per year.
http://www.republicofmining.com/2011/11/19/the-200000-a-year-australian-mine-worker-by-john-w-miller-wall-street-journal-november-16-2011/
Could it be that teenage criminal hackers are a product of single psychotic mothers?....
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXAmDlBkCmI
No, of course not. Society's doing just fine. WE NEED MORE EEEK-WALLET-Y!
Pat...
ReplyDeleteThe downside of ecomonic booms is that they drive up the cost of everything else.
Crappy mobile homes in Fort McMurray - the kind you can get here for $40K - were going for $350,000!
And there's the other drawback of Fort McMurray: hellishly cold winter 11 months of the year, so there's really nothing to do but drink and watch the tundra grow. And before you know it, you're splitting open the bathroom door with an axe and doing the "Heeeeeeere's Johnny!" thing.
Echoing Pat Sullivan above, there's good money to be had if you're actually willing to work. Really work, that is; 12 hour days, 3 weeks with no day off, being willing to get dirty.
ReplyDeleteDepends on the exact occupation, but it's not necessarily back-breaking and exhausting, just tiring. It can also mean you're away from friends and family for extended periods, living in motels or work camps, so it's not for all lifestyles. Single guys can swing it best.
I was headed for Cubicleland myself, fortunately it didn't pan out and I got into the trades to pay the bills til my white-collar ship came in. To hell with boarding it now, though. Office Space got it right.
I'm outdoors. I'm making bucks. Fuckin' A.
Theory is grey but life is green. Or, translated, why don't you get your welder's certification (a good mobile trade, always in demand) and head off for Ft. McMurray instead of moaning about "declines"? You'd make some real money, probably more than you ever did as an underwriter, and the Newfs up there would teach you how to drink - Lamb's rum, of course, and real beer.
ReplyDeleteI think Izanpo wins the "Comment of the Year Award."
ReplyDeleteTo Izanpo,
ReplyDeleteI would say all frontier type boom towns, share a few things in common. Whether its Deadwood, The Klondike, California in 1849, currently Fort McMurray, they are wild places. Hard drinking, gambling, hookers, we all know the story.
To Izanpo,
ReplyDeleteI would say all frontier type boom towns, share a few things in common. Whether its Deadwood, The Klondike, California in 1849, currently Fort McMurray, they are wild places. Hard drinking, gambling, hookers, we all know the story.
Meanwhile the shortage of skilled workers continues, so their pay packages keep increasing. In Fort McMurray Alberta, and many Western Australian mining towns, they have to recruit workers from all over the globe. Making over $200,000 a year is not uncommon, for many mine workers.
ReplyDeleteCompare that to sitting in a cubicle making $40K per year.
Or you could get a degree in something requiring mathematical rigor (or part of one as the guy in the cube next to me dropped out) and then spend a few years (5 or so) proving you can use it.
My group hires at about 1 in 1000 resumes and while we're not all making $200K US a year (is that $200K you quote USD or AUD?) we're all pulling in over $100K US while sitting in a cubicle.
The secret? We do mathematical modeling and while the degree levels range from one BS dropout to several PhDs all the degrees are mathematics, physics, engineering, economics, statistics, or computer science (the least common even though we are all programmers...it's easier to teach programming than higher math to new hires).
The $40K/year Bachelor's cubicle job is rarely the future of someone who can handle differential equations.
With the marine trades it is typically six weeks on, six weeks off, so workers see a lot of their homes if they want to. And they return with some big bucks in their pockets!
ReplyDeleteI don't know how it goes in Ft. McMurray. There is a lot of back and forth between there and e.g. St. John's, so much so that a couple of the airlines have dedicated flights. So it is not like the bad old days.
Re: the trades.
ReplyDeleteDespite my good job doing computer programming/mathematical modeling (see above) one of my biggest regrets in life was not taking advantage of the United Services Military Apprenticeship Program (scroll down to Apprenticeship). If memory serves the name was different why I was in.
The program takes very little extra time, mostly it is paperwork to document you doing your job in a way that you can get apprentice hours for it. Sure, I always intended to go to college after the service but having the back-up, even now a decade an a half later, would have been wise.
Still, I spent nine years doing with my hands and while I'm not great at it if shit hit the fan I could trade plumbing, welding, and machining work for other useful things like food.
Young men reading this blog, even if you're planning an academic type career learn enough of a trade to find a place if you need it.
There was another such chart which documented the rise of "administrators" along with the faculty. Can't find it now, but it looked quite the same.
ReplyDelete