In the SFBA, Lockheed hires welders who can get a security clearance.
Someone I know was in their 70s working there, because there isn't a large pipeline of welders to pull from. In his words, "there's a bunch of great guys with steady hands delivering doordash, because it pays better than being an apprentice in a body shop".
Most automotive welders can't get a clearance, the true factory welding jobs no longer pay well or are automated away.
In response, the old Martinez chevrolet factory welders are continuing to work in Lockheed with larger than normal incentives to stick around past their medicare and social security pay.
Most of them would rather be training new guys (or girls, apparently half of the good new welders are women), but most of the time there's nobody new who comes in.
This has arguably been happening with all fields since the beginning of time.
Mere literacy used to qualify you for a management role. I am not sure you could get a job of any kind without being able to read and write now. It gets replaced with more time spent in specialized education.
That's not a real problem. There are established models for training people to work in fields, where you need plenty of experience to qualify for an entry-level position. Medicine is the most prominent example.
And it's going to be easier than in medicine, because software is so forgiving. You can do real work during training with minimal supervision, as mistakes rarely cause serious harm.
In the SFBA, Lockheed hires welders who can get a security clearance.
Someone I know was in their 70s working there, because there isn't a large pipeline of welders to pull from. In his words, "there's a bunch of great guys with steady hands delivering doordash, because it pays better than being an apprentice in a body shop".
Most automotive welders can't get a clearance, the true factory welding jobs no longer pay well or are automated away.
In response, the old Martinez chevrolet factory welders are continuing to work in Lockheed with larger than normal incentives to stick around past their medicare and social security pay.
Most of them would rather be training new guys (or girls, apparently half of the good new welders are women), but most of the time there's nobody new who comes in.