6 Blue-Collar Jobs for Career Switchers

blue collar jobs

Electrcian $15 lol wow no Thry belong to unions and journeyman make bank. Auto techncians are not even paid hourly they are paid on flat rate. Which means they charge u to just find the problem and then once they find it theirs a flate rate manual which say s how much the repairs going to cost including labor. Say it says it takes 2 hours to do the repair for $200, u do it in an hour well u just got paid for 2 hours of work but only worked on it an hour.

george of NC @ Nov 14, 2009 10:51:19 AM

Whoever wrote this is crazy

What planet is this author on. General maintenance worker: $12 hr. Auto mechanic: $14 hr. Electrician: $15 hr. Truck driver: $17 hr. This author needs to quit smoking crack.

Eric of FL @ Nov 05, 2009 14:08:40 PM

skilled trade

Not everyone is cut out for college and the country was built on the blue collar. Who do you think mows the lawns, puts up the cell phone towers, pumps our oil out of the groudn. Supplies your food int your grocery store. Blue collar will never go away. White collar is not the way of the world and there is an influx of students making it even harder. Stop putting our kids in debet to only find the white collar jobs are next to nothing. Teach them a trade start their road that won't end no matter what. We will always need roads, cars to be built, phones to be built, houses to be built, building to be zoned, electricity to be placed, oil to be pumped. NO matter how it changes SOMEONE has to do it. We are just so afraid of getting our hands dirty and that is why so many immigrants are coming here. WE ARE SPOILED!They'll do it and we are letting them.

Dawn of SC @ Oct 15, 2009 11:02:50 AM

This info is out of perspective

Manufacturing employees,maintenance techs,industrial electricians will be tough jobs in the future due to the extreme shrinking of our manufacturing and the extreme influx of immmigrants competing for these jobs at low pay.Auto mechanics are good paying jobs but with the loss of many dealerships and the growing durability of plastic cars and the incentives to buy new energy efficient cars mechanics too will be under pressure.There are blue collar jobs out there but a large percentage wont be reliable they will be short term as never before

dale of IA @ Oct 11, 2009 20:01:05 PM

Job openings

There are alot of jobs out there if you know where to look. The job market isnt as bad as people think. I was just on www.bluecollarcrossing.com and there are tons of jobs there. Everything from carpenter jobs to longshoreman jobs. if you dont believe me look.

David Hess of VA @ Jul 09, 2009 21:17:33 PM

aerospace workers

Aircraft mechanics, fabricators Etc. are essentially making the same wages as ten years ago, whether FAA certified or not; save the top Major air carriers. UPS being the highest paid union workers at over 100K. The rest us are still underpaid.

Mark of CA @ Jun 21, 2009 20:34:57 PM

Thanks for the useful info. It's so interesting

Thanks for the useful info. It's so interesting

JamesD of AL @ Jun 11, 2009 13:16:14 PM

truck drivers

i am 3rd generation long distance driver. since deregulation this has turned into a sweat shop business. re: book sweat shops on wheels by mich belzer. usa today front page "truckers are most discontented workers in american industrry" as a whole, trucking has driver employee turnover of 136%. factor out the ltl segment, which has very low turnover because of union contracts or threat of unions, and you will find that most of that very high turnover applies to the truckload segment,which is where most new drivers will start, experiences a 200-300% turnover. no threat of unions in truckload business. in truckload business, a driver will be commonly away from home a month of more at a time, and when he does get home he will be permitted 48-72hrs. he is paid only for his miles at a mileage pay rate that is usually less than the industry standard in 1982. according to a study contracted by the truckload carriers assoc. an arm of the american trucking assoc., a typical truckload driver spends about 40 hr. per week awaiting, or loading, unloading, etc. truckload business is non-union, therefore that 40hr.is non compensated time. gov regulations require that those 40hr be logged as on duty not driving. drivers are only permitted 70hr on duty time weekly. no driver will enter these pickup and delivery time legally in his log as it will leave him only 30hr to drive his pay miles. so they lie on the logs to save the 70 hr for driving pay miles. but they did perform the 40hr loading unloading etc. therefore, that $47,000 annual income is based on 40hr non-driving time +70 hr p/week driving, or 110 hr weekly or a 5,720 hr p/yr. remember this is based on the indusrty's own numbers! any driver will tell you illegal logging is the worst kept secret in trucking. in the very rare case a driver is caught for falsifying logs, the driver pays the fine. fact is, todays driver is a willing victim. other interesting numbers documented by the great plains study contracted by americasn trucking asso. before the turnover became this bad revealed, on the average new drivers are in and out of the industry in 3.2yr, only 18% of driver have been on the road more than 6 yrs. also, out of that $47,000 the driver pays all of his own meal, telephone, etc.expenses. meal expenses $30-40 per day is about $11, 15K pyr. btw, that $47000 is exactly the same avg pay for long distance drivers in 1982, in fact approx. $6,000 less than my gross annual pay in 1983. i can document that with my 1983 w2. with turnover of 200-300% or even as little as 136% explains the job openings, in reality truck driving today is a job not worth having! and the industry's own numbers prove it! i can document everything stated here. i was invited(and attended) by the director of the federal motor carrier assoc. to wash dc for a private discussion of the regulatory safety aspects of this problem. this is all very similar to what they are discovering in regional air line industry.

gerald of TN @ Jun 11, 2009 13:08:04 PM