[pwthornton]

Blue collar employment has been falling in this country, replaced by either knowledge work -- which usually requires further education -- or service industry jobs. If there were truly huge demand for many of these professions, pay would be skyrocketing, encouraging more and more people to go into these professions.

I agree that there are and will continue to be good skilled trade jobs and many people would be better served by pursuing these options, but there is tremendous value for the average American in a college degree. The problem is that a lot of Americans are unable to graduate college, and waste their time and money pursuing a degree instead of doing something more inline with their talents or their drive.

As it stands, automation will most likely continue to primarily affect blue collar workers before it hits knowledge workers. Long-haul truck driving will probably fall relatively soon and factories will continue to have more and more automation.

[brianbreslin]

I've seen welders making $160k/year in Texas (oil), BUT the caveat is that its 1 welder whereas 20 years ago that 1 guy had 3 coworkers.

[FLUX-YOU]

Plus that is likely a shitload of hours per week. Definitely not sustainable long term.

[shostack]

How do the health risks compare to sitting at a desk all day?

[brianbreslin]

You could argue programmers in most countries get compensated for that risk of sitting all day. But most office workers do not.

[ghaff]

OTOH, I've been trying to get a bathroom remodel done for about 18 months at this point. (Hopefully about to start.) It's 1.) Not cheap and 2.) Isn't about to be done by a robot.

Not for everyone obviously and it's not big pay but I know what I pay contractors and it's nowhere near minimum wage.

[kasey_junk]

But you could have gotten it done much faster by paying more...

[ghaff]

Ha! Money was not particularly an object. Everyone was just busy.