On The Plains, The Rush For Oil Has Changed Everything

Re:On The Plains, The Rush For Oil Has Changed Everything by JPKab on Wednesday January 29, 2014 @11:46PM (#7149122)

Yeah, this is very common. It's simple economics: the barrier to entry for the majority of "starting at 100K" jobs was just geography, due to a short supply of workers and a huge demand. Eventually enough workers flood in, the wages drop, and the only people who can get a high starting salary are the highly skilled tradesmen (drill operators, welders, etc)

Tie onto that the fact that rents are relatively high due to a housing shortage, and you get a bunch of people living paycheck to paycheck just like they were before.

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Re:On The Plains, The Rush For Oil Has Changed Everything by protomyth on Thursday January 30, 2014 @12:17AM (#7149189)

Skilled vocational workers still make the cash (and drivers for other reasons), but grunts make grunt wages. There are several state grants to get more vocational training, not only for oil but for the extremely short supply of people for infrastructure projects. Due to worker and driver shortages many building projects in the east are delayed or taking much longer than thought.

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Re:On The Plains, The Rush For Oil Has Changed Everything by JPKab on Thursday January 30, 2014 @10:49AM (#7151246)

Yep. We can thank our idiot high school guidance counselors in the US for this. If you are a high school student who is remotely responsible and productive, you are pushed to go to college for a "good job" and are actively dissuaded from any alternative except the military.

Slacker? Stoner? Bad grades? Well ok then, maybe the trades are for you. This is why when I worked construction, on most crews I worked on, I was surrounded by fucking losers. When I got into the specialized stuff, I got to work with real tradesmen.

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