We'll be short 1M electricians by 2020. Bringing vocational training back into high schools will help us ditch fossil fuels, bridge the skilled workforce gap, and empower more young people to succeed.
New York State has this program called BOCES, which are cooperative job training high schools that students can optionally go to part time in their Junior / Senior year of high school. So you can go and learn welding, mechanics, electrical, construction, it networking, cooking, etc. The schools usually are targeting students who aren't college bound. But it is a great program which I know a lot of people who were able to get solid careers going right out of high school.
Good idea - but practically, we'd have to raise the minimum wage to make these jobs attractive to young people, and a national infrastructure program would also be needed to provide the financing. Otherwise we'll just continue to slide towards a system of wealthy enclaves surrounded by miles of slums, and slum dwellers can't afford to pay for construction upgrades. Granted, wealthy enclave dwellers will be providing some jobs, but they'll probably be hiring contractors whose workforce consists of cheap immigrant labor, not recent graduates of American high schools.
There are historical examples where electrification was accelerated, e.g. FDR New Deal programs like Rural Electrification and the WPA, but that would entail a complete restructuring of federal government priorities, increased taxes on the wealthy, redirection of military-industrial budgets to domestic infrastructure, etc. Seems unlikely in the current political climate, where oligarchs run both parties like sock puppets.
Electricians and HVAC don't make minimum wage. I know HVAC workers making $100k a year in a LCOL area, which is more than many people with degrees or master's degrees make. Many of these areas require certifications as well, so you can't just have any person do it (if you are doing it legally).
Plumber in the midwest I use for some properties just let me know their new rate is $160/hour. My electrician is booked months out. I had to trench 24-30" deep and lay 4" schedule 40 non metallic conduit (PVC) ~120 feet myself to upgrade the service entrance at a new property.
It is a question of the pay to qualify of life at work ratio and the volatility of it.
Quality of life at work means things like having to travel, volatility of schedules, health risks from the work, quality of coworkers, etc.
Volatility is are you getting paid a salary every 2 weeks, or are you exposed to more fluctuations in landing jobs, and dealing with customers who do not pay.
Maybe the situation has finally turned a corner where an office/white collar job is no longer a no brainer.
It's not the pay, it's the social status. As other commenters have noted, a skilled tradesman can make a competitive salary. However, ask most white-collar, college educated people if they want their children to go into the trades, I wager the majority will say "no" and believe they need to get a college degree and work in a profession (or simply an office job). In the US, there is a stereotype that only those unable to get into college work in trades as a consolation prize.
I think it might be more that a lot of people aren't willing to do manual labor if they have an alternative that pays as much or more. Even some contractors and electricians I have spoken to have steered their children away from trades not because of status, but that it can be really tough on your body and health.
I work in renewable energy, and have started to get my hands on electrical work here and there—this is a serious space of opportunity for people starting their careers.
Not every job needs to be (nor can be) a desk job, and with the advent of AI tools, you'll still have many hands-one roles in the field. Much of the difficulty of getting solar and home battery storage (like Powerwall) is because there is such a shortage of electricians.
“Shop Class as Soulcraft” has a line that stuck in my memory: “You can’t hammer nails over the Internet.”
Also, before the pedants go finding nail hammering robots, it’s a simplification to make the point that there will always be room for the trades in the real world.
Something that really frustrates me is that modern society doesn't seem to provide many opportunities for balance when it comes to work. I don't think I'd enjoy (and can't currently afford to) be a full time electrician. But I think some mix of doing professional electrical work and building software sounds pretty great. But expertise is critical and it's hard to build it by splitting time.
It's funny, in high school due to social perceptions I didn't align myself with the "shop kids", and took exclusively computer-based electives.
It's led me to a lucrative career in programming, but now all my hobbiest time is actually spent learning the same hands-on skills I would have gotten in shop class, I love doing automotive repairs, I even learned how to fix my own AC system, and want to learn to weld.
Electrical is the tricky one because it's the one with the most consequences for mistakes. I wish there was a "electrician lite" night school or something.
Grab some Arduinos, LEDs and buttons/switches and you'll learn about electricity pretty quickly with no real risk. It'll get you to a point where you should be comfortable enough working on mains electricity because you'll understand what's dangerous and what isn't.
And if you're in the US and a healthy adult, you're probably not going to kill yourself if you take a zap at 120V/15A.
Everything after "Grab some Arduinos, LEDs and buttons/switches and you'll learn" is terrible advice.
Wiring mains circuits is about craftsmanship and the ability to repeatably follow technical rules for low probability events that were nevertheless "written in blood". Tinkering with electronic circuits is not going to get you the engineering rigor you need to come at mains circuits from first principles.
You certainly can learn DIY house wiring safely as its own thing! The point is that they are just completely different skillsets, and you shouldn't be extrapolating confidence from low voltage circuits into mains wiring.
Also no, while 170 volt mains voltage (US residential peak voltage) is not likely to "kill" you, the actual risks are things like house fires from short circuits and intermittent connections. If you're doing anything where you're worried about getting "zapped", you're doing things horribly wrong in the first place.
I disagree regarding how much overlap there is between low voltage skill sets and high voltage skill sets. Even though the consequences are different, understanding when the circuit is energized and not is important, understanding the path of current flow is important, and lots of other concepts intuitively overlap.
For most household wiring tasks, turning off the circuit at the breaker box is the main safety provision. Using a wire nut properly is a bit tricky but not the worst thing in the world, and I don't trust a rushed contractor to tighten a wire nut any better than myself.
There is overlap for design/analysis. The problem is that overlap is insufficient to do mains wiring safely. Engineers doing their own work is an inspector cliche for a reason.
> Using a wire nut properly is a bit tricky but not the worst thing in the world, and I don't trust a rushed contractor to tighten a wire nut any better than myself.
This ties right into my point though. Low power circuits generally don't use wire nuts, and even when they might, they don't use thicker solid wires generally used for mains wiring. So you most likely learned wire nuts as their own separate skill, rather than from low voltage circuit work. My point is you've got to learn all those mains details in their own right, rather than thinking it's just like low voltage/power wiring.
(I totally agree about trusting yourself versus a rushed contractor! Emphatically yes - please do learn to DIY! My point is about the learning path to get there)
Oh I'm comfortable with DC, and am unafraid of low voltage tinkering.
For mains it's not the 120V zap I'm particularly worried about, it's the possible fire that occurs months later while I'm asleep because of some rookie mistake I made (connection that gets loose and starts to spark or something), that endangers anyone in the structure.
If I could have all the danger upfront and while I'm actively working on it (like woodworking), and limited to just myself, I'd be much more comfortable.
> Electrical is the tricky one because it's the one with the most consequences for mistakes.
I disagree. Woodworking is WAY more dangerous.
I have had exactly one mishap working with eletricity over the years. Somebody wired a piece of industrial equipment backwards (neutral as hot) and I got the shit shocked out of me.
I have had quite a few near misses in woodworking even while being amazingly aware. I know of no old woodworker who has all of his fingertips.
This video is about woodworking injuries gotten by YouTube streamers (CAUTION: Graphic!):
The one I never thought about was the final one (the table saw accident). It was a dual combination failure. He took an injury on his right arm which drew all his attention which then caused an accident with his left hand.
Yeah, I'm a big believer in safety equipment, even when it's inconvenient, after thinking about that one.
Minor correction: power tool woodworking is indeed scary as all shit, very much treat it with respect.
But there is also hand tool woodworking as a hobby. Much less risk. I won't say none (a falling chisel has no handle), but you are much less likely to suffer a life changing injury.
I guess not necessarily the "most" consequences, but the best hidden (at least to me as a novice).
When woodworking, I'm aware of the spinny bit and can watch a quick video on how to use the tool safely. And it's only a danger to myself (or anyone in the very immediate vicinity), while in active use.
My fear about electricity is the hidden dangers, or how things can seem to work fine up for hours/days/years until they don't and melt/start a fire, and then my home can go up in flames while myself and my family are asleep over something as trivial as a loose connection.
Just read the recent HN reponses to "The skilled trades haven't caught as a career choice [...]" [1]. Until an article addresses that, it's just wishful thinking.
This article does address the push for all kids to college. Read comments at [2] as well.
Very useful comments about the barriers to entry: [3].
My own biggest concerns would be:
1. Popular anti-union perception: bad for recruitment, and bad once you're in.
2. Need to be in good financial shape by 40 so you don'
I recently read a long thread explaining how hard it is to apprentice to an electrician, and how only the people at the top who own their own companies are really making good money. Too much work too dig it out.t ruin your body.
> 1. Popular anti-union perception: bad for recruitment, and bad once you're in.
The doublethink I hear on unions is crazy.
I have multiple family in the trades that are un-unioned and their statements are along the lines of:
- They constantly bitch about how horrible unions are
- Oh, {insert company here} workers voted to unionize? the unions just gonna fuck 'em over
- All the people they started with who moved to unions are retired with well funded retirement funds and they really should have gone union when they were young.
It's such an obvious problem. It's hard enough to get an electrician to come check your place for a basic job -- how do we expect to even simply build enough charging stations so that the average consumer doesn't need to think about taking a 500mi trip?
I wonder if the average person thinks that something like a Tesla charging station is something that's manufactured somewhere far away from them and just plugged in to a the nearest power line. "We have electricity everywhere so it's just a matter of time" mentality.
We drove kids to college under the guise of "you'll be fucked if you don't" while simultaneously sounding the alarm on climate change but didn't think to try and connect the two problems to anticipate the solution 30 years ago?
Why bother? Western countries doubled down on climate change as their immigration policy. There won't be a labor shortage in the future. The only shortage will be the number of guardsmen patrolling the border and the problem with those is that they need to be loyal and swiftly execute "permanent" orders or else their backlog will grow like that of a college student who constantly has to correct his homework and resubmit it.
I took shop class in high school and was a welder for 9 years after I graduated. I think we can absolutely shorten the entry into the trades. I would have loved to work an entry level welding job in the summers once I turned 14. It would have been a whole lot better than all the dangerous shit I did working for farmers. There is so much untapped interest in the trades among teenagers.
A neighbor kid I grew up with, struggled with acting out in school. His home life was massively disfunctional. However, he loved to tinker and play with all things mechanical. I think an apprenticeship in high school would have been life changing for kids like him.
At my high school taking trade classes would take up half your day, as you would have to take a bus to the regional facility that had all the trade classes. It was scheduled almost perfectly to overlap with the classes you would need if you wanted to get into college for a STEM degree.
We had shop classrooms on site all kitted out to teach kids welding, carpentry, and fabrication skills, and even had the old shop teacher still on staff. Admin just didn't want to teach it anymore, and all that equipment sat gathering dust. It would have been sick to offer a beginner's welding class as a study hall alternative.
I think this is an amazing idea. My high school was also home to a regional vocational trade center, meaning we had amazing facilities for any kind of trade, including a small restaurant. Students in the program actually built a complete house one year, and many of my friends took full advantage to jump directly into trade careers upon graduation.
As a student on the honors track, all of this was completely inaccessible to me due to academic requirements. For example, to take Calculus as a senior, I had to have already complete 4 years of math classes (meaning doubling up one year). Calculus itself was a "lab" class, meaning it met 3 days a week for an hour, and 2 days a week for 2.5 hours. That left zero time for anything not "academic".
As an adult, I use algebra and geometry frequently, and have to resort to Youtube to learn the plumbing, carpentry, and light electrical work I use almost every weekend to maintain my home. It would have been nice to have learned this at a younger age, so that I could do things efficiently and at a higher quality instead of fumbling around for hours.
44 comments
[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 114 ms ] threadThere are historical examples where electrification was accelerated, e.g. FDR New Deal programs like Rural Electrification and the WPA, but that would entail a complete restructuring of federal government priorities, increased taxes on the wealthy, redirection of military-industrial budgets to domestic infrastructure, etc. Seems unlikely in the current political climate, where oligarchs run both parties like sock puppets.
Quality of life at work means things like having to travel, volatility of schedules, health risks from the work, quality of coworkers, etc.
Volatility is are you getting paid a salary every 2 weeks, or are you exposed to more fluctuations in landing jobs, and dealing with customers who do not pay.
Maybe the situation has finally turned a corner where an office/white collar job is no longer a no brainer.
Not every job needs to be (nor can be) a desk job, and with the advent of AI tools, you'll still have many hands-one roles in the field. Much of the difficulty of getting solar and home battery storage (like Powerwall) is because there is such a shortage of electricians.
Also, before the pedants go finding nail hammering robots, it’s a simplification to make the point that there will always be room for the trades in the real world.
It's led me to a lucrative career in programming, but now all my hobbiest time is actually spent learning the same hands-on skills I would have gotten in shop class, I love doing automotive repairs, I even learned how to fix my own AC system, and want to learn to weld.
Electrical is the tricky one because it's the one with the most consequences for mistakes. I wish there was a "electrician lite" night school or something.
Although they do often tell me "oh I could never actually do that, I'd lose my mind". Which of course many of us do :)
You can learn a whole lot about electricity by working on small low voltage projects like that without any risk of harm to yourself.
Brian: I'm a **in' idiot because I can't make a lamp?
Bender: No, you're a genius because you can't make a lamp.
Brian: What do you know about Trigonometry?
Bender: I could care less about Trigonometry.
Brian: Bender, did you know without Trigonometry there'd be no engineering?
Bender: Without lamps, there'd be no light.
https://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~lecturedemonstrations/Composer...
And if you're in the US and a healthy adult, you're probably not going to kill yourself if you take a zap at 120V/15A.
Wiring mains circuits is about craftsmanship and the ability to repeatably follow technical rules for low probability events that were nevertheless "written in blood". Tinkering with electronic circuits is not going to get you the engineering rigor you need to come at mains circuits from first principles.
You certainly can learn DIY house wiring safely as its own thing! The point is that they are just completely different skillsets, and you shouldn't be extrapolating confidence from low voltage circuits into mains wiring.
Also no, while 170 volt mains voltage (US residential peak voltage) is not likely to "kill" you, the actual risks are things like house fires from short circuits and intermittent connections. If you're doing anything where you're worried about getting "zapped", you're doing things horribly wrong in the first place.
For most household wiring tasks, turning off the circuit at the breaker box is the main safety provision. Using a wire nut properly is a bit tricky but not the worst thing in the world, and I don't trust a rushed contractor to tighten a wire nut any better than myself.
> Using a wire nut properly is a bit tricky but not the worst thing in the world, and I don't trust a rushed contractor to tighten a wire nut any better than myself.
This ties right into my point though. Low power circuits generally don't use wire nuts, and even when they might, they don't use thicker solid wires generally used for mains wiring. So you most likely learned wire nuts as their own separate skill, rather than from low voltage circuit work. My point is you've got to learn all those mains details in their own right, rather than thinking it's just like low voltage/power wiring.
(I totally agree about trusting yourself versus a rushed contractor! Emphatically yes - please do learn to DIY! My point is about the learning path to get there)
For mains it's not the 120V zap I'm particularly worried about, it's the possible fire that occurs months later while I'm asleep because of some rookie mistake I made (connection that gets loose and starts to spark or something), that endangers anyone in the structure.
If I could have all the danger upfront and while I'm actively working on it (like woodworking), and limited to just myself, I'd be much more comfortable.
I disagree. Woodworking is WAY more dangerous.
I have had exactly one mishap working with eletricity over the years. Somebody wired a piece of industrial equipment backwards (neutral as hot) and I got the shit shocked out of me.
I have had quite a few near misses in woodworking even while being amazingly aware. I know of no old woodworker who has all of his fingertips.
This video is about woodworking injuries gotten by YouTube streamers (CAUTION: Graphic!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc-lIs8VNIc
The one I never thought about was the final one (the table saw accident). It was a dual combination failure. He took an injury on his right arm which drew all his attention which then caused an accident with his left hand.
Yeah, I'm a big believer in safety equipment, even when it's inconvenient, after thinking about that one.
But there is also hand tool woodworking as a hobby. Much less risk. I won't say none (a falling chisel has no handle), but you are much less likely to suffer a life changing injury.
When woodworking, I'm aware of the spinny bit and can watch a quick video on how to use the tool safely. And it's only a danger to myself (or anyone in the very immediate vicinity), while in active use.
My fear about electricity is the hidden dangers, or how things can seem to work fine up for hours/days/years until they don't and melt/start a fire, and then my home can go up in flames while myself and my family are asleep over something as trivial as a loose connection.
This article does address the push for all kids to college. Read comments at [2] as well.
Very useful comments about the barriers to entry: [3].
My own biggest concerns would be:
1. Popular anti-union perception: bad for recruitment, and bad once you're in.
2. Need to be in good financial shape by 40 so you don'
I recently read a long thread explaining how hard it is to apprentice to an electrician, and how only the people at the top who own their own companies are really making good money. Too much work too dig it out.t ruin your body.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34262345 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34263317 [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34273605
The doublethink I hear on unions is crazy.
I have multiple family in the trades that are un-unioned and their statements are along the lines of:
- They constantly bitch about how horrible unions are
- Oh, {insert company here} workers voted to unionize? the unions just gonna fuck 'em over
- All the people they started with who moved to unions are retired with well funded retirement funds and they really should have gone union when they were young.
I wonder if the average person thinks that something like a Tesla charging station is something that's manufactured somewhere far away from them and just plugged in to a the nearest power line. "We have electricity everywhere so it's just a matter of time" mentality.
We drove kids to college under the guise of "you'll be fucked if you don't" while simultaneously sounding the alarm on climate change but didn't think to try and connect the two problems to anticipate the solution 30 years ago?
A neighbor kid I grew up with, struggled with acting out in school. His home life was massively disfunctional. However, he loved to tinker and play with all things mechanical. I think an apprenticeship in high school would have been life changing for kids like him.
We had shop classrooms on site all kitted out to teach kids welding, carpentry, and fabrication skills, and even had the old shop teacher still on staff. Admin just didn't want to teach it anymore, and all that equipment sat gathering dust. It would have been sick to offer a beginner's welding class as a study hall alternative.
As a student on the honors track, all of this was completely inaccessible to me due to academic requirements. For example, to take Calculus as a senior, I had to have already complete 4 years of math classes (meaning doubling up one year). Calculus itself was a "lab" class, meaning it met 3 days a week for an hour, and 2 days a week for 2.5 hours. That left zero time for anything not "academic".
As an adult, I use algebra and geometry frequently, and have to resort to Youtube to learn the plumbing, carpentry, and light electrical work I use almost every weekend to maintain my home. It would have been nice to have learned this at a younger age, so that I could do things efficiently and at a higher quality instead of fumbling around for hours.