Hanging out on Linkedin is a real bummer these days. Two years of layoffs in tech and tech adjacent companies have software developers, designers, testers, project managers, tech recruiters, HR professionals, content writers, marketers, and pretty much everyone else near the tech industry reeling. PhDs and former CTOs are begging for jobs. Social media pundits are fond of saying “Just go into the trades instead! High demand and great pay! And they’ll train you!”
Well, that sounds great. But none of the people saying these things is actually IN the trades.
Let’s take a look at the average hourly wages in Virginia for some representative jobs in the trades, retail, and service sectors, per Indeed salary data:
Plumber - $28.66
Electrician - $27.86
Automotive mechanic - $26.83
Fiber optic technician - $25.18
Construction worker - $17.57
Hairstylist - $18.20
Assistant chef - $17.22
Retail assistant manager - $15.69
Let’s take a deeper look at the highest paid of this sampling, plumbers. I plugged the hourly rate into a net salary calculator, which estimated the plumber’s net monthly pay at $4,127 a month. A general rule of thumb is that housing costs shouldn’t be more than 1/3 of your monthly net, so our plumber could afford about $1,375 in rent. The average rent in Virginia is $1,569.
Okay, that’s not great, but it’s still more than a lot of the other options. So, if I, as a mid-life career switcher, want to become a licensed plumber in the state of Virginia, how do I do that? Some Internet searching finally located this handy guide to eligibility for a journeyman plumbing license. You need to have one of the following:
Four years of practical experience and 240 hours of formal vocational training
Five years of practical experience and 160 hours of formal vocational training
Six years of practical experience and 80 hours of formal vocational training
Seven+ years of practical experience and 40 hours of formal vocational training
Associates degree or certificate of completion from at least a two-year plumbing program and two years of practical experience
Plumbing-focused bachelor's degree or certificate of completion and one year of practical experience
Ten years of practical experience
A plumbing license from another state
Once you have met one of these requirements, you can apply for licensure ($130) and take a test ($100). Then all you have to do is find a job!
Okay, it looks like the associate degree + experience path might be the most reasonable choice for a career switcher who wants to get back into the game quickly. Community college tuition in Virginia is $2,379.15 for a full-time semester. For a two-year program, that would cost $9,516. That’s a lot less than chasing after a law degree. But I still have to pay my bills and eat during that two years of study. To support my small family in relative comfort and security in Virginia, I need an estimated $74,081 a year. For living expenses and tuition to complete my career transition, I’ll need a total of $157,678. (We’re not even talking about the fact that my expected salary once I’m a working plumber, at $58,240, will not meet that estimated cost of supporting a family.)
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that kind of nest egg. I’d need to get to work and earning a paycheck much quicker. I wonder what kind of apprenticeship options there are? Back to the search engine I go, clicking on a dozen government and media websites to try to find what options might be available. Eventually I determine that the Department of Labor and Industry is the right agency for apprenticeship program regulation. But there is zero information on their site about such. In fact, their site is so awful that I got a headache just trying to navigate it. The only email address on their site is for “webmaster.” The nearest local office is in Lynchburg. There are phone and fax numbers listed. I’m sort of tempted to send them a fax, if I can remember how to do that. It’s been about 20 years.
Anyway, to all those folks advising the massive number of unemployed tech workers to just switch careers, I think maybe you need to actually walk the walk. I’ll call you when my septic goes out.