Pursuing something more hands-on

Patrice Lewis reports at World Net Daily,

...The notion of giving up college – or ignoring one’s college degree – to pursue something more hands-on is gaining steam even in urban areas. It’s a real shame a college degree now has the undeserved cachet it does, because blue-collar jobs are abundant, dependable and often awesomely high-paying. Some construction companies are offering six-figure salaries for skilled labor. In such fields as butchers, electricians, plumbers, automobile upholsterers, etc., unemployment is virtually zero, and the ability to earn a living wage is extremely high.

So I’m pleased to see millennials re-examining their career options and considering alternatives to the high-debt, low-worth degrees coming out of colleges these days (the exception, as always, being STEM degrees).

But why – now, of all times – are younger people considering these previously low-status occupations? Why is being a butcher suddenly trendy? What’s the attraction in bartending? Why is hair cutting such a hot career all of a sudden?

“They’re taking the opportunity to do work that’s mental, manual and social,” notes Ocejo. “They can use their hands and bodies to actually make something, and they can also use their minds to create new things and to understand the principles, cultural history and philosophies behind what it is they do. Then, they’re able to communicate this knowledge and skill to the people they serve.”

“There’s a strong disaffection toward today’s economy,” Ocejo continued. “People don’t know where their place in it is. There’s less guidance for young workers about what they’re destined to do, and less stability in those jobs. All that is very unsettling, but these new jobs have the air of being stable, and at least they’re grounded in physical workplaces and practices, rather than being in the ether of the digital. That’s something a lot of people told me – they don’t want to work on computers. Days spent emailing or on videoconferences isn’t for them. They want to work with material things, and to have the kind of specialized knowledge that they can actually discuss the specialness of what they do, and to create new things.” [Emphasis added.]

Read more here.