Why Good Jobs Are Hiding In Plain Sight | Jason Altmire From #481 | The Way I Heard It

One of my boys builds houses-construction. One builds roads, one lays huge pipe for a construction company. They all started as a cook for Sizzler steak house. Then welding for a big company that makes agricultural fencing. One then went to landscaping. All I can say is they all survive pretty well.

The fix is on the job training. It's not like all these foreign workers were born with an innate ability to work a CNC machine, heck they didn't even go to school for it. The whole "5 years experience" hiring practice was invented explicitly to keep Americans out of fields of work. American workers are even more deserving of the chance, considering most foreign workers don't even have a basic education above what most Americans get by the time they're in the 3rd grade. So we've got a lot of Americans who have a huge basic education advantage, being cast aside for people who barely even have a good reading level in their own language, let alone English. It makes no sense until you realize it's by design to screw over Americans.

Mike Rowe for president

The other side to this...I was a contractor my whole life. Now I'm retired and puttering away fixing up my place. Did two big projects last year. Would have cost me $60K to hire contractors, which mean I would have had to make 90K to pay income taxes, then pay them. Brought in both projects for under $5K, plus my labor, which was not full time, it was 'puttering away'. So I 'made' $85K last year by not hiring it out, not getting a job, and just doing it myself. And I like puttering away. It's like having my own real life Lego set. Now I'm going to go pressure wash my roof before hanging some new gutters. They wanted $10/ft for the gutters. I'm bringing it in for about 75 cents/ ft.

As someone who graduated from a community college recently I loved what you guys said about reinventing yourself. I am a young person, I am going to be 24 this year, but community college I feel, very strong about this, is the best placed to start an education. University is an expensive playground for kids coming out of high school, and I say that as someone who is currently in Uni classes. While community college is giving trade skills and good opportunity to the people. I feel like it made me realize that you can ALWAYS change, you never "failed" if you aren't hitting all the milestones you "should" hit in life. There is no script in life. I took classes with disabled veterans. middle aged moms and dads, special needs people, elderly people, and just all kinds of people in different parts of their lives. These people are NOT failures, they are the people uplifting our communities the most. Working-class, HARD working people. I absolutely loved my time in community college. I will never stop singing its praises.

Society will always put us down, until we're needed. Know that we laugh you, believe that.

Love this episode! I'm in a small southern state in a small town. Our local high school busses 11th & 12th graders over to the technical college in town where they take HVAC, auto mechanics, construction, welding, nursing - lots of programs. This is FREE for the students, so they get a big head start while they are still in high school 😊

Another issue is companies will not hire you without a associate degree. I had 5 years building maintenance experience and maintenance supervisor experience. No one will even talk to me I don't have the degree.

So I’ve been a welder for going on 15 years now. I agree with the ideas of there being skills gaps and how society looks down on trades as a whole and so on. As far as my experience and what a quick search can tell you the idea that anyone can go to welding school and just go out and make 100k a year is absurd. National average salary is about half of that. In order to make that you are typically going to be working endless hours away from home and family. So if you are willing to make that sacrifice yes absolutely you CAN but it is the exception not the rule so I’m sorry Mr Rowe but in my experience that is a huge misrepresentation of reality. I am hopeful that the work you and many other are doing eventually changes this.

I work in the trades. Only one of my sons work in the trades. He makes more than I do. I was able to guide him to what pays well and what he would love. Now he welds dozens of stories in the air. My other boys are in college working on real world, applicable degrees. One geologist, one engineer. We want better for our children.