Its brutal out there for new graduates. Worst unemployment rate for new graduates in decades.

I'd have to fight tooth and nail now for the career path I took and I suspect being in the trenches trying to claw your way up (assuming you got in) is more difficult than ever.

The USA, Canada, etc. are in rough spots. Fairly high cost of living in high employment areas, now high competition for entry level jobs that are disappearing rapidly overseas , and via AI (AI is still shit, more overseas than AI but it will continue to get better). And while a trades market might be able to absorb some new graduates, its not remotely close to the pace other industry jobs are being outsourced.

The other issue is that people tend to grossly exaggerated trade workers earnings. They "know" people or they earn XYZ. Well that's easily dismissed by just looking at average earnings which is all available data. A carpenter is going to earn on average 55-65K. The bulk of employment comes from large builders and the wages are not great, does it beat unemployment, yes is it what people toute on the internet, absolutely not. The majority of workers are not working for themselves, they are working for big builders, and the subcontractors big builders use. You are still working for someone else.

We had to nip outsourcing in the butt long ago. Government is always way behind industry.

This post was edited by SBD on Jan 12 2026 09:48am

first we outsourced to china and india, now we insource h1b1 visas to bring the chinese and indians here.

as it turns out it always was as simple as china and india offering dirt cheap labor that dont care at all about worker safety.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Jan 12 2026 09:51am

And now we have professional positions bet outsourced rapidly to places like the Philippines, and even Eastern Europe where you can get extremely high quality work for a fraction of the price you would pay here for an equivalent designated professional. All the cheaper countries starting to want a piece of that Wester pie now and its only detrimental for your average Western worker. Whenever its good for a Shareholder or CEO, Partners , etc its probably bad for everyone else.

Earnings calls just churn your stomach these days, whenever the pricks say yeah our new pricing strategy (dynamic pricing) is really creating a new customer experience, or we're creating customer value (by adding ads to buillshit) and then they say in the next sentence we expect a bump in our margin of X points.

I hate it all, I hate where this train is going and it does not seem like the Gov't is overly interested in derailing it.

This post was edited by SBD on Jan 12 2026 11:42am

Over the past 40 years, China lifted roughly 90% of its population out of extreme poverty, effectively eradicating it. In contrast, the United States reduced the share of people living below its official poverty line from 13% to about 12% over the same period, leaving a portion of the population still in poverty. But dont worry, the US will invade some country and that will magically translate into improved infrastructure, employment, health care, standard of living etc etc. I was told this the other day - it has to be true.

This post was edited by ferdia on Jan 12 2026 12:02pm

Such a small part of the American market honestly. I don’t care what data someone pulls out of their backside. Most INTELLIGENT trades people are working as multi purpose handymen or highly specialized self employed small business owners. Why? The profit cut.

For instance if you manage to get the contract of a couple of small schools and apartment complexes you can take in easily 50k and by “a few” I mean 2 of each. Double that and you are making in six digits.

When I was working for the EPA I literally had small time handyman type guys come in for interviews and laugh IN MY FACE for offering the 50-60k we generally offered our maintenance and technicians.

Also commerical short term rental business running rampant in residential zoned jurisdictions. Things like AirBnB.

Yes. yes, we all know people that are outliers, but that does not represent any averages. Fact is the average trades worker, framer, drywaller, plumber, electrician isn't making six figures and most are not working for themselves.

Trades is not some merical route that people want it to be. It will get you a job right now and likely into the foreseeable future but for the average trades worker it lands you solidly in the 60K range. Its not some special path to upper middle-class and beyond.

And data is not coming out of anyone's backside, its published by Bureau of Labour Statistics, and frankly if you have a huge surge into trades the same thing would happen as any other sector, more supply of workers and graduates who want to get hours to get ticketed, companies get more leverage and wages get further pushed down.

This post was edited by SBD on Jan 12 2026 03:33pm

The Bureau of Labor Statistics would have very skewed numbers on many of these fields as half of these people don’t even report a lot of their earnings. Why would they? They get paid in cash and check most of the time from individuals. The government has to rely on them filling out an honest 1099. Sure, we can say the thousands of people I’ve known over my years working with such people are outliers, I definitely don’t represent everyone in the US but I find it very hard to believe guys going around house to house getting paid in cash and personal checks are reporting 100% of their wages and I for sure have known many who openly admitted to not doing so. It’s a huge part of our SNAP fraud situation in Texas for sure. You got guys with kids and a family making 6 digits but only reporting 20-30k and getting food stamps.


You can’t exactly “oversaturate” a handyman. They do everything. You’d have to oversaturate every trade in existence nearly.


Most legitimate (non tweaker) Handymen are charging AT LEAST $50/hr (a lot are more like $100 but we will go with $50). If we are to assume they are pulling full time hours (although again most pull more than 40 actually) they are pulling in 2k a month. That’s 96k a year at bare minimum. Sure you get the tweaked and felons just doing odd jobs once a week for their fix but they definitely don’t represent a legitimate handyman.

This post was edited by T3XBOT on Jan 13 2026 05:56am

That is totally not true.
Roughly ONLY 1/3 of its entire population have the equivalent on a highschool diploma.
The coastal cities r shiny - the rest is living in brutal poverty.

I thought of replying but note that refuting you would be off topic. The US has jobs, not everyone can get the 6 digit jobs though.