For Generation Z, the Value of a Career in the Trades is a No-Brainer Apprenticeships are an attractive alternative to student loans and desk jobs for those who seek success and engaging work at a young age. By Natasha Ashenhurst
When your heat pump stops
you may have pay a very steep price for the
55 to 64-year-old demographic. Unless more
working in the middle of winter,
luxury of heat in winter.
people enter this field, we’ll experience an
chances are—unless you are an extreme DIY-er, you are
even more severe labor shortage. “Right now, we employ nine residential service techs,” said Trenton Fluetsch,
What surprises many is that these jobs
going to call an HVAC (heating,
service manager at Sunset Air. “I could
pay well. Really well, in fact. Someone
ventilation and air conditioning)
easily employ twice that number.”
new on the job in an apprenticeship
company to send out a service technician and have them fix or replace the heat pump and get the heat back on ASAP.
program can make around $50,000 per
Let’s Set the Stage
year and a journeyman — someone who
Fluetsch and other experts concur that part
has completed the apprenticeship program
of the problem is that for years, we’ve been
— will make close to six figures per year,
repeating to kids a false choice—either get a
with benefits and an impressive retirement
college degree, or you’ll be flipping burgers
package and no student-loan debt.
The growing shortage of skilled trade
at McDonald's for the rest of your life. So
labor—jobs that fill positions such as HVAC
many people have chosen the ‘college then
The Solution?
technicians—would hit home when the
career’ path that our country is facing a
Build awareness and encourage young
HVAC company you call tells you that there
shortage of skilled tradespeople. According
women and men to try it for a year. Sunset
is a two-week wait to fix your heat pump.
to Forbes, in 2012, 53 percent of skilled-trade
Air is trying a new approach to build a
So you hang up the phone and keep dialing
workers in the U.S. were 45 years and older,
future workforce — let young people try the
until you find someone to do it, knowing
and 15.5 percent of jobs were held by the
work for a year or two before committing
thurstonchamber.com
Thurston County Chamber VOICE
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February 2019
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