The Skilled Trades Crisis Nobody Talks About | Josh Smith #485 | The Way I Heard It

It was honor being on Mike. Thank you for having me!

I am an experienced machinist. I can run tons of different equipment. Lathes,mills and many more. The problem is no company’s will pay for the skills. They all want experience but they do not want to pay for it. I worked in shops for 20 years and had to quit because I couldn’t afford to live on the wages. People make more delivering food than skilled people it is so backwards

Trade classes need to start in 7,8,9 grade then by 12th grade there ready for apprenticeship.

Bad thing is machinist wages are at the bottom compared to all the other trades now !

I am a machinist and I would not suggest most people become one. If you want to be looking at 3% pay raises, no matter how hard you work or how many different machines you can run, be a machinist. I’ve gotten excellent reviews from my boss for the last 3 years. He recently told me I was possibly the most versatile employee in the shop, and there was nothing he thought that I could not learn to do. He said there’s only possibly two other guys in the shop that possibly know more machines than me. I have very low scrap loss/rework, and I got the exact same percent raise as the worst scrap loss guy, who had $25,000 scrap loss in a two month period alone. Every floor employee got the exact same % raise. Over the last 25 years, they’ve given us an average of 2% most years and every once in a while we got a 3% raise this new corporation that took over gave us 3 1/2%, but they doubled the cost of our health insurance and took away 2% of our 401(k). And I work for one of the largest machining corporations in the world.

As a former, yes former CNC Machine Shop Owner… What killed my business was my work was taken across the Mexican border for five dollar labor … No Tariffs on the goods returnimg across the border, no penalties on the American Manufacturers opening up factories in Mexico… My employees were classic middle class, buying homes, a new truck every three years and maybe pulling a boat to unwind after busting ass for me all week… Me and a thousand or more shops just closed, not bankrupted, just closed in Houston alone… My shop provided a descent and safe work environment, 100 percent paid health benefits, vacations, and holidays …. I did the best I could to keep it, but open no tariff borders killed us all .

I love that Mike is calling out the national media. That is largely why I am watching this during prime time hours instead of “regular” TV anymore.

Been a A Class Machinist for 43 years. Ran CNC, conventional machines and manual. I have seen over the past 10 years the trade loosing experience and money that at one time that was good. Love being a machinist, like being around like minded machinist , love making chips!! But what I see is companies shift towards operators not a true machinist!!!

The two biggest problems: 1. A skilled machinist has to have a massive amount of knowledge across many subjects. Materials/metallurgy, fixtures, tooling selection/application, machine types, control types, G&M code, geometry, trig, tons of calculations related to cutting, CAD, CAM, GD&T, proper inspection techniques, part processing, etc..... 2. The management most often does not understand a fraction of what goes into it. It is incredibly stressful work. Plumbers, Electricians, and welders are making significantly higher wages.

There's a reason why theres a machinist shortage. Because the industry pays like shit compared to the amount of skill involved. Its why R/machinists is filled with threads abkut people leaving the trade or thinkng about it - when you can get work for as parts picker at the local auto parts place and make more money for less hours, theres a problem.