gobbledonk Posted February 8, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2003 LT, In Canada, we have a glut of techies and IT people, but are desperately short of experienced tradespeople. My major customer will hire all they can find, at a average wage of close to a 100 thousand a year, mechanics, welders, heavy industry jobs that will always have to be done, and there are never enough people to do the job. Trust me - you are not alone. Australia is also paying the price for our emphasis on the undergraduate degree as being the only qualification to aspire to when a young person leaves school. An electrician was telling me a similar story to yours the other day, and it got even scarier. He claims that TAFE (our major nationwide trade school, run by the federal government) is failing record numbers of would-be electricians because the (relatively) few people who have chosen a trade over university simply arent bright enough to handle the academic demands of the trade. 4 years on shit money, crawling around in confined spaces, guarenteed shocks : its not what the modern teenager is looking for in a career. Interstingly, they announced that applications for university places in IT degrees were down this year .... As for welders, the good ones deserve the figure you mentioned and more. Oxy isnt so bad, but arc welding is an art : anyone who can do overhead welding should be paid accordingly. At the height of their powers, these people are metallurgists, and the rest of the world needs to recognise that. I'm a little more sceptical about mechanics - we have so many duds down here that its very hit-and-miss. Its a much more demanding trade in this electronic age, but it can also be purely a 'parts-changing' exercise for the lazier guys who simply want to empty your wallet. I saw some sensational mechanics in the Army, but to see someone who just keeps replacing parts until the problem goes away is enough to make you stick to new cars for the rest of your life. Anyway, I take your point, but my own skillset dictates that I keep pushing for another IT job. In 3 years, IT employers will probably be bleating to anyone who'll listen that there is a 'skills shortage' .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted February 8, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2003 gummigut, Unless the employer has a decent reason for having you move your butt within 4 hours notice (bad market not withstanding) I say give them a pass Normally, I'd agree with you, but there is an old phrase : beggars cant be choosers. The more I see of the jobs that people do just to 'get by', the more desperate I am to get back into IT. Stress and the threat of RSI aside, its a pretty cruisy way to make a living, or at least it was prior to the downturn. BTW, something I wanted to include in my previous post to LT was my take on the IT 'skills shortage'. Like the US, Oz has been importing skilled people from India and other countries for several years, in a bid to halt this 'skills shortage' which employers had identified in IT. The shortage, IMO, was in a very narrow band of skills, primarily Java, and it was a shortage of trained programmers who would work for half of the going price. Institutions leapt into action, and Java became de rigeur, to the ridiculous point of teaching it as a first language. We now have plenty of Java programmers, thanks very much, and a mate of mine recently spent 3 months coolng his heels while waiting for another opportunity to put his considerable Java skills into action. My point ? Simpy that the industry continues to run, lemming-like, after whatever silver-bullet is fashionable at any point in time. Outsourcing ? Quick - sack everyone and get me EDS in India ! Its Dilbert come to life (yeah, I know..). We now have recruiters posting ads asking for .NET developers with 4 years experience who are ready to 'hit the ground running'. I'd imagine suitably-qualified applicants for these positions must be hard to find, given that the first production .NET products are all of two years old, and Microsoft is still toying with the whole 'vision'. At least its not boring Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redbaron Posted February 8, 2003 Report Share Posted February 8, 2003 Says artiew: LT, In Canada, we have a glut of techies and IT people, but are desperately short of experienced tradespeople. My major customer will hire all they can find, at a average wage of close to a 100 thousand a year, mechanics, welders, heavy industry jobs that will always have to be done, and there are never enough people to do the job. Trust me - you are not alone. Australia is also paying the price for our emphasis on the undergraduate degree as being the only qualification to aspire to when a young person leaves school. An electrician was telling me a similar story to yours the other day, and it got even scarier. I'm in the same boat here. I've been in the meat industry for the better part of 12 years, and we simply can't hire people. Butchers, labourers knifehands etc... we're paying well above award wages, but the downside is the early starts (same as the rest of the meat industry). Very hard to fill the customers' orders etc... makes my life hell at times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted February 8, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2003 RB, Whilst I sympathise with your plight, you have to ask yourself how many teenagers, in this day and age, aspire to hanging out in a freezing meat locker carving up hunks of dead animal at 6am ? There is a meatworks in northern NSW that is forced to import Kiwis because the locals don't want to front up to something they see as a 'dead-end' job. We also have problems in Oz's manufacturing sector : very few people who made it thru 12 years or more of schooling want to work in environments that they perceive as noisy and dangerous, despite advances in process technology and environmental management. Telling someone that you work in a factory is right up there with telling them that you just moved in to a caravan park (aka 'trailer park'). Successive waves of immigrants have made very successful lives for themselves in Oz simply by doing the jobs that we no longer wish to do. When the knowledge worker jobs that we do aspire to are taken offshore, that just leaves tourism and hospitality. Would you like fries with that ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redbaron Posted February 8, 2003 Report Share Posted February 8, 2003 You are dead right. The company I work for is an Italian family run business, which simply got too big for the family (and it's a BIG Italian family), they made it work from the 50's I think. We also have a lot of good Kiwi, Samoan and Tongan butchers/labourers working for us, and they are pretty much all great workers. The average school leaver wants to make mega $$$ straight away, as you say, doing little or no physical work. Like you said before, it is drummed into you at school to do university. Even when I was at school (HSC) and had NO interest in uni, my teachers said, "What about an arts degree?" WTF would that do for me? Answer: kill 4 + years. What winds me up is the 'kids' who have not finished HSC, turning their noses up at the job. A job which pays quite well IMHO but has it's downsides as well, like all vocations. I'll get off my soapbox now. Nothing against people with degees etc, if it works for them, good on 'em. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2003 Report Share Posted February 9, 2003 Sorry to hear this. Hopefully you will get a job very soon and we will see you back in LOS spending lots of money and time for girls Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasmine Posted February 10, 2003 Report Share Posted February 10, 2003 Hi, [color:"red"] In almost every profession there are trade shows, suppliers and customers, lots of networking opportunities, I tell my employees all the time that to get ahead you have to play the game, of course that only gets you in the door, then you have to perform. [/color] Getting in the door can be a BIG step for just about anyone. What I also have noticed also is that each company has their own protocol for what type people they want. Our company sends people to the clients' sites and we do need to get along. As a woman/minority, I use that as an asset. For the past 2 years, I have noticed something really delighful (in the USA), that is more female managers support other females!!!! Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 10, 2003 Report Share Posted February 10, 2003 Says jasmine: [color:"red"] [/color] Getting in the door can be a BIG step for just about anyone. What I also have noticed also is that each company has their own protocol for what type people they want. Our company sends people to the clients' sites and we do need to get along. As a woman/minority, I use that as an asset. For the past 2 years, I have noticed something really delighful (in the USA), that is more female managers support other females!!!! Cheers! That is very refreshing to hear, but is certainly not what I have seen in my industry, which is very male dominated. When more than one female is present in the same area, the claws come out :: I think that may be the case because in this business they have to go through a lot to even get noticed, let alone promoted, so the natural tendency is to defend your turf. Great to see it is different in your profession Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
think_too_mut Posted February 10, 2003 Report Share Posted February 10, 2003 >Having not previously suffered more than about a month of unemployment, its a real eye opener. 10 weeks since I've been out of work, 4 of them spent in LOS. To come back to the money I was on, only 3-4 companies pay around that ball park. As I know them and some people there, I am not even bothering writing around or going job agencies. Those companies said - they all requested positions like mine from their headquarters but "req approval" is a process that takes long time. All 3 attached my CV to the req requests. One even booked me for training on their gear in March (2 weeks, free for me) and want to contract me if there is no permanent job. Emails and calls from people in charge (from the 3 companies) keep me out of panic but I can't say I am not nervous. 10 weeks no work is 10 weeks and don't get any shorter as the time goes by. Hope the days before work are getting fewer but that uncertanity is not easy to bear. I'll give it another 3-4 weeks, it's worth waiting a bit longer for the right thing. If nothing happens I'll step down to the parquetry and do whatever I can find, does not have to be in IT. Driving, waiting...whatever. If I am lucky, if there is a job offer, I'll go to LOS for unforgetable 3-4 weeks before going to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted February 10, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2003 If I am lucky, if there is a job offer, I'll go to LOS for unforgetable 3-4 weeks before going to work TTM, I share your dream on both counts, my friend. 10 months ago, I didnt think I'd either return to Thailand or quit what seemed to be a secure job. At least I'm not bored regarding the predictability of it all anymore Hang in there TTM, and I'll try to do likewise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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