93gsxturbo said: seasoned millwright
That's me.
Mechanically skilled, but a little salty.
That's why I struggle with them asking me to come back to work. The work is so easy, and the money is so good.
93gsxturbo said: seasoned millwright
That's me.
Mechanically skilled, but a little salty.
That's why I struggle with them asking me to come back to work. The work is so easy, and the money is so good.
93gsxturbo said:Fueled by Caffeine said:93gsxturbo said:And here we are trying to hire every competent welder, assembler, millwright, and master or journeyman electrician we can get our hands on.
Remember, kids. Don't stay in school. Get in the trades.
Sure. I guess. I. Know so many people with broken bodies at 45 from the trades. I think The play is start in trades but then start your own business doing trades and make money.
Sure bro. Id put a seasoned millwright up against an just about anyone for long term "work all day" strength and endurance. Amazing what just moving, carrying, lifting, squating, bending every day does for strength. Its not big muscle guy or weight weenie cyclist strength, its farmer strength, and its well insulated by a fair bit of Busch Light and gas station hotdogs. But it exists, and its real. BITD when I was slinging hay bales all day erry day (and definitely crushing my fair share of Taco Bell and Busch Lattes, went to do the standard physical fitness test in school. Pushups and situps were maxed. Cardio...well not so much. But it felt good to beat out the muscle bros at pushups and sit ups.
There are old, broken people in the trades just as there are in office jobs. There are very fit, healthy people to be found in both areas also.
If you are the type of person to put zero effort into fitness/healthy lifestyle, then I'd agree the trades are at least going to require consistent movement which is better than sitting still at a desk.
In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :
That is officially one of the best posts in this thread! Thanks for posting that!
It’s also very relevant. I’ll be retiring soon, and that’s exactly the path I intend to take (with some similar concerns heading into it)
Thank you for posting that!
On the fitness issue, I was doing some E36 M3ty underpaid gig work in 2024 that felt like it was absolutely destroying my body with hundreds of squats per day, and although it would leave me pretty sore for a day afterwards I seem to have come out no worse for wear from it in the long term.
Not a fitness issue. An injury one. You find 3-5% of most trades are on disability at any time and most companies will boot you after not returning to work in 6 months.
Just ran across news that after a couple years of marination, the labor market's reality is starting to seep into official labor market data:
https://fortune.com/2025/10/30/jerome-powell-ai-bubble-jobs-unemployment-crisis-interest-rates/
Mr. Powell unfortunately still hasn't realized that AI is the biggest stupidest bubble of the post-Depression era and that the claim of the job losses being caused by AI automation is almost entirely a heaping helping of stock-price-juicing lies with some hopes and dreams sprinkled on top. Few people have actually had their labor replaced by recent AI technology and most of them were graphic artists and videogame voice actors. A lot more people have had their jobs destroyed indirectly by AI such as journalists (caused by the AI-summary-driven web traffic apocalypse) and tech workers (caused by AI sucking up every molecule of oxygen in the industry investment-wise).
Fueled by Caffeine said:Not a fitness issue. An injury one. You find 3-5% of most trades are on disability at any time and most companies will boot you after not returning to work in 6 months.
Related - don't get hurt doing something else if you rely on your body to work. Over the years I've managed to collect a few injuries that would have prevented me from being a mechanic (as an example) for weeks but which did not affect my ability to work at all.
Fueled by Caffeine said:Not a fitness issue. An injury one. You find 3-5% of most trades are on disability at any time and most companies will boot you after not returning to work in 6 months.
Dirty little secret is big GCs use self insurance (think credit default swap games) deals called CCIPs that make them more money than building things.
And if you get hurt on their job you have to go see doctor Bombay who says you’re fine, get back to work.
Fueled by Caffeine said:Not a fitness issue. An injury one. You find 3-5% of most trades are on disability at any time and most companies will boot you after not returning to work in 6 months.
Ok, but 18.7% of people in the country are on disability. Almost 40% of post 911 military vets are on service related disability.
If you are right and the trades have 3-5% on disability, that sounds like they are doing pretty darned good.
I’m not sure disability is a good measure of work related injuries. It’s also possible it could be a measure of how many people figure out how to work the system…
In reply to SV reX :
Uh, are you really comparing someone who probably deployed multiple times to a tradesmen who worked here in America? That's not even apples and oranges, it's more like Earth and Mars...
SV reX said:Ok, but 18.7% of people in the country are on disability. Almost 40% of post 911 military vets are on service related disability.
If you are right and the trades have 3-5% on disability, that sounds like they are doing pretty darned good.
Apples and oranges. If someone drops out of the trades on permanent disability, they don't show up in that 3-5%, they become part of the 18.7%. Those numbers are both quite surprising, especially the latter.
Anyway, I think part of the issue RE: Injuries is your specific workplace. A small contractor will often have little to no rules or safety precautions, ergonomic assessments, etc. If you aren't knowledgeable in an environment like that, you can definitely hurt yourself. The approach to safety can vary widely across the trades.
Don’t worry. The trades will be ruined by private equity very soon.
In reply to docwyte :
I’m not in any way disparaging any of our military. It wasn’t intended as a comparison.
FBC said 3-5% of tradespeople are on disability as an evidence of injuries they have sustained related to their work. I think that’s a gross underestimate. I was curious what the disability rate was for the general populace, and also curious about the disability rate for people who serve truly dangerous roles.
The 3-5% number doesn’t make any sense to me. And honestly, neither do the 18.7% or the 40%.
I appreciate those who have served.
I’d love to see some actual comparisons of the health issues between trades workers and people who work in office environments. I couldn’t find it.
My opinion is that trades workers are much healthier than office workers. I don’t see all these broken bodies I hear about.
I read his comment as "out on short term disability" (i.e. sprained wrist, back to work in a few weeks), not "out of the workforce due to a disability"
In reply to TravisTheHuman :
You may be right.
How many office workers are out for a few weeks?
SV reX said:I’d love to see some actual comparisons of the health issues between trades workers and people who work in office environments. I couldn’t find it.
My opinion is that trades workers are much healthier than office workers. I don’t see all these broken bodies I hear about.
Just guessing, I would agree except for the lifestyle tradesmen might lead. Like - Hell yea! it's beer 30. ?
Whatever he said, about 3-5% of tradespeople on disability ,let's see something to back it up instead of picking different numbers out of the air to argue how wrong it is.
A few things that don't get mentioned often about being in the trades, and I refer to industrial/manufacturing, like were recently mentioned. No company around here will lay off their tradespeople, because they know that if they do, they'll never get them back. In the one plant I worked, the entire workforce, all the supes and most of the managers were laid off. The maintenance guys still showed up like usual, took it easy and did some shutdown repairs and installation. The place I just retired from is dead, and running a skeleton crew in production but still actively hiring millwrights
My son (also a millwright) and I did a rigging job yesterday at home. He brought a box full of slings, shackles, straps and chain. I had the same as well as a 10 ton enerpac pump, and ram, come alongs, and a chainfall. We had a few thousand dollars worth of equipment, and neither of us paid a cent for any of it. It was supplied by our employers for one reason or another in the same way that we don't pay for hardware like nuts and bolts, lubricants, and other shop supplies. It's considered part of the compensation package when you're in maintenance. You need it, you take it. Some guys get more, some get less, and you're regularly given certain tools for jobs and told, just keep them. I have every kind of lubricant, loctite, and anti seize imaginable in my shop. That E36 M3 adds up, not to mention tool allowances that you can use to outfit your home shop, which, along with your accrued skills, gives you the ability to do things you may otherwise have to pay big bucks for
OSHA has injury rates by oppcupation are available. The rates I cited are for my team field based trades guys. Sample size is in the hundreds. Across multiple countries.
Possibly a discussion for another thread, but to summarize some data real quick:
TABLE 1. Incidence rates of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by industry and case types, 2023
Total "Cases with days away from work, job restriction, or job transfer*
Construction: 1.5
Manufacturing: 1.8
Information: 0.6
Finance, insurance, and real estate: 0.4
Professional Services: 0.6
Education and health: 1.7
Leisure and entertainment: 1.5
The incidence rates represent the number of injuries and illnesses per 100 full-time workers and were calculated as: (N/EH) x 200,000, where
N = number of injuries and illnesses
EH = total hours worked by all employees during the calendar year
200,000 = base for 100 equivalent full-time workers (working 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year)
Some interesting sub-groups in that data if you scroll through. It would be fascinating if you could filter them out. Ex: Performing arts: 9.0, Computer programming: 0.0. Quite a few health-worker related fields have high injury rates.
For this discussion, this only paints part of the picture. Its just injury rates, no discussion of chronic health issues. I'd like to see that side (if it exists). I suspect office workers are susceptible to sedentary related issues and trade workers possibly joint or repetitive motion issues, but I have no idea how common that is.
berkeley the formatting controls in this text box
My take on this thread…
Quite a few loud voices.. “OMG, THE WORLD IS FALLING APART. THERE ARE NO JOBS!!”
(Repeat…repeat…repeat…)
A few small voices.. “Hey, there’s an awful lot of jobs in the trades that pay pretty well”.
Quite a few loud voices.. “THOSE ARE TERRIBLE JOBS! THEY WILL berkeley UP YOUR BODY!”
(Repeat…repeat…repeat…)
A few small voices.. “Well, ok. But my life is not so bad”.
Rinse…repeat.
Rinse.. repeat.
For 2 1/2 years.
I feel really bad for you guys who have been struggling. I’m sorry you are going through this. I completely recognize that the trades are not for everyone.
I’m doing pretty well, thank you. I haven’t missed a day of work in the last 15 years.
In reply to SV reX :
I started to type a similar response Yesterday and figured why bother? It’s been said here plenty but the same people keep having the same excuses. They don’t want to look in the mirror.
In reply to SV reX :
I hire hundreds of tradesman per year into an apprentice program. It’s insanely hard to find good people. So many fail to show up on time, misuse their company vehicle or card. Even though my attrition rate is 1/4 of industry standards I’ll keep hiring.
if I was to say any industry was best to get into I’d say medical.
way more job openings in medical than anywhere else right now.
https://www.bls.gov/charts/job-openings-and-labor-turnover/opening-industry.htm
A friends wife just became a Crna, certified nurse anesthetist, way less school than a doctor but average salaries in the $200’s without scores of overtime.
https://nurse.org/resources/nurse-anesthetist-salary/
Fueled by Caffeine said:In reply to SV reX :
I hire hundreds of tradesman per year into an apprentice program. It’s insanely hard to find good people. So many fail to show up on time, misuse their company vehicle or card. Even though my attrition rate is 1/4 of industry standards I’ll keep hiring.
if I was to say any industry was best to get into I’d say medical.
way more job openings in medical than anywhere else right now.
https://www.bls.gov/charts/job-openings-and-labor-turnover/opening-industry.htm
A friends wife just became a Crna, certified nurse anesthetist, way less school than a doctor but average salaries in the $200’s without scores of overtime.
https://nurse.org/resources/nurse-anesthetist-salary/
This is the way.
My bride is even earning a pension in HC…
..working part time!
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