Supply will meet demand.
C.
I hate quoting myself, but I have to do it when I can't find anyone else who said it. I came across this unpopular opinion on reddit concerning the trades, and I found myself agreeing with the original poster. I share it here in full because it will probably get deleted which is a common thing on reddit.
DO NOT go into trades because it pays "well"
Before we move forward, get two things in your head. Think reoccurring patterns and think LONG term Present performance is not indicative of future returns. If you're unable to think longer than 20 years in the future, you can leave this thread.
I would like to point everyone back to the 2010s. Everyone is telling everyone to go into IT, learn to code. Computer Science became one of the most sought after degrees.
Now come 2024. Everyone and their dog knows how to code. Everyone's cousin is in compsci, there's a massive layoff in tech and everything is getting outsourced to India to South America where code is code, it doesn't care what country it's from.
Today, the same thing that happened to IT in the 2010s is happening to trades. Everyone and their aunt is telling youngster to go into trades because "it pays a lot of money". Because "there's a shortage". Once again we see the same long waitlist in school, in apprenticeships and the shortage for competent workmen.
What that means is in 10-15 years, we are once again going to see the same thing that happened to IT happen to trades. We are gonna have way too many tradesmen and not enough jobs.
When that happens the trades apocalypse will come.
To go even further, the rise of mechatronics and large scale prefab will reduce the labour requirement for a lot of work in the future. They don't need to create a robot that can build it in the field when they can create a robot that can build most of the components in a factory and have a few installers just assemble it like legoes. Big slash in labour cost.
Yes we will always still need tradesmen but the 6 figure tradesman is an anomaly, not the norm. Ask any tradesmen over 50 if being in the trade has always been glamorous.
This post simply highlights a truth that I have known for most of my adult life. In a capitalist economy, supply will meet demand. This includes the demand for particular job skills. It doesn't matter if it is medicine, management, computer science, chemical engineering, petroleum engineering, plumbing, or carpentry. When there is demand for those skills, people will train to meet that demand to earn that higher pay. This brings down the pay and the opportunities over the long term.
I have watched this happen in many fields. It is so common that I think going to college for any specialized degree is a waste of time, money, and energy for most people. Many people have turned to the trades now because they are in high demand. People have heard Mike Rowe's message and gone chasing those dollar bills. Inevitably, the supply will meet demand, and the pay and opportunities will revert to the mean. Then, Mike Rowe will tell you to go to school for something else.
I don't have an answer for this problem. My other regular quotation on this is that every boom goes bust. What I recommend to people is to accept a concept known as the median income. This is what most people earn and what you are likely to earn in your profession. Most people can't beat the stock market, but they can accept the average return by buying index funds. Likewise, most people are going to earn the median income, and they can guarantee that income with flexibility and a basket of skills that don't require four years of study and a mountain of debt to acquire.
I've come to the conclusion that employers love it when you pay for your own job training. The compensation for that training will almost never cover the cost of that training. That is a sad and sick truth, but it is what it is.
