Why doesn’t anyone want to go into the trades?

I salute you!

Why doesn’t anyone want to go into the trades?

Why does nobody want to work in the skilled trades anymore?

My experience from ten years of self-employment. At the beginning of my self-employment, I worked as a subcontractor for many years and got to know a lot of companies. I can say quite clearly that the companies in the skilled trades are completely lagging behind when it comes to modernization, especially in the metal sector.

Some of the companies are so outdated that it’s simply no fun to work there. My daily routine was to spend half the day looking for tools or realizing that the tools didn’t exist and I always had to improvise.

That’s not the rule, of course, but I’ve experienced it very often.

Occupational safety is only ever discussed in terms of footwear, but what about respiratory protection? Why are there still no extraction systems or fresh air helmets for employees in companies? There is a clear need to catch up in order to protect the health of employees.

A small side effect is that performance is of course also much more effective than without. Unfortunately, welding fumes are so underestimated that nobody is interested in them. Even though we live in Germany, where everything is always taken so strictly.

That’s exactly the feedback I often get from my community, because we have extraction at every welding station and my employee also has a fresh air helmet.

But not only that, we also offer, for example, a proper break room, coffee machine, small snacks or even fruit. These are the things that many bosses unfortunately forget and that would be expenses for the boss and an employee is of course happy about it.

So there are lots of little things you can do in the trade to motivate people. This has long been practiced in other professions, which is why many young people naturally opt for careers other than the skilled trades.