Dude, sucks to be you. And I mean that in the most supportive way.
Read about your dilemma in the Vancouver Sun. Must be mighty painful to see neighbours of yours being flown back and forth to Alberta for their eight in and four out spells driving the big trucks in the tar sludge projects.
For $120,000 a year.
With their grade 10 educations.
And you with your fancy degree shuffling back and forth between Target and Starbucks trying to make ends meet.
That's gotta hurt.
Your first mistake was believing the government bullshit about how that degree in "economic geology" was going to take you to a special place. Why didn't you just take a degree in shoveling government bullshit, like Pedro there in the video?
Anyway, no use feeling bad about the past. It's too late to undo your fancy education, and the honkin' huge student loan debt you are no doubt stuck with.
Here's a tip. I know they're big on job training out there in Newfoundland.
Sign up for a welding course.
Ya, I know that after your degree in economic geology that's gonna be a bit of a come-down, but at least it's going to get you a job. And I'm betting the lowest paid welding gig in Alberta is gonna trump your Target/Starbucks pay by a wide margin.
Once you're in with one of the contractors out there, who knows what can happen?
What? Stevie out there welding pipe in the ditch has a geology degree? Get him in here RIGHT NOW!!!
So stay strong, Stephen. Good things can happen.
Do not despair!
Showing posts with label job training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label job training. Show all posts
Monday, December 30, 2013
Friday, December 23, 2011
News flash: rising salaries eat into corporate profits!
No kidding.
There's a scary story in Canada's newspaper of record today about the supposed labor shortage in Alberta. The shortage itself is real enough. There simply aren't enough qualified welders and pipefitters and heavy equipment operators around to fill all the vacancies.
But it is a contrived shortage, a deliberately engineered shortage. There is a shortage of skilled workers because policy-makers at the highest levels want there to be a shortage.
The shortages they have created provide the rationalization for bringing in skilled workers from other countries. Needless to say they don't bring in those workers from high-wage countries. The entire game here is to bring in workers from lower wage countries to drive down Canadian wages.
That's also why they are lukewarm about bringing in unemployed American trades. Why bring in welders from Poland and Hungary when there's guys from Oklahoma and Texas would be happy for the work, and they speak the language and can put their stuff in the pick-up and be there in a couple of days? That's the problem; they speak the language, they're often members of the same unions, and they know the going rate for pipe welders isn't fifteen bucks an hour.
The obvious solution of course is to train unemployed Canadians to do the work, but that would require an investment in training.
And training the unemployed is just one more thing that would cut into corporate profits.
There's a scary story in Canada's newspaper of record today about the supposed labor shortage in Alberta. The shortage itself is real enough. There simply aren't enough qualified welders and pipefitters and heavy equipment operators around to fill all the vacancies.
But it is a contrived shortage, a deliberately engineered shortage. There is a shortage of skilled workers because policy-makers at the highest levels want there to be a shortage.
The shortages they have created provide the rationalization for bringing in skilled workers from other countries. Needless to say they don't bring in those workers from high-wage countries. The entire game here is to bring in workers from lower wage countries to drive down Canadian wages.
That's also why they are lukewarm about bringing in unemployed American trades. Why bring in welders from Poland and Hungary when there's guys from Oklahoma and Texas would be happy for the work, and they speak the language and can put their stuff in the pick-up and be there in a couple of days? That's the problem; they speak the language, they're often members of the same unions, and they know the going rate for pipe welders isn't fifteen bucks an hour.
The obvious solution of course is to train unemployed Canadians to do the work, but that would require an investment in training.
And training the unemployed is just one more thing that would cut into corporate profits.
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