I think this is the big distinction. People want high paying jobs that they don’t have to do shit at. Those are hard to find trade or otherwise. If you have technical skills, have a degree of social skills and can sell yourself and services you can be successful in nearly any field.
I taught myself how to weld during covid and have made some money on the side welding shit and Im not very good at it.
I think to truly make money in a trade you have to have the spirit and drive to go out on your own and either be an independent contractor or start your own business.
I could make a quarter million a year if I was willing to do the physical labor of my trade. I did it for years and my body hurt constantly. Instead I’ve tried to build it as a company I could possibly sell with installers, office manager, ops manager, and such. Now I just spend all my money on overhead and make like 20% more than my employees do.
Running a business is hard and not always lucrative.
Def is a sweet spot you have to hit with scale, pricing, employees, timelines and all that comes with it.
My brother in law owns the largest plumbing in NC. He says his guys can make six figures if they’re willing to work a little OT.
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Plumbing, hvac, and electrical guys do well. All the things that require certs, and on the residential side give the guys opportunities to be salesmen on site too.
Masons, carpenters, painters, flooring, landscaping, drywall…those guys all get paid shit in the south. Welders can make good money if they’re doing speciality welding but I have three friends that went to school for a welding certificate and they all got 18/hr and they all three worked at different places so that seemed to be the going rate as recently as 2022.
I did some work at GKN’ facility years back and they had replaced a lot of their welders with machines because the quality was better.