How middle class earnings have changed,

[mickb]

There are quite a few fellas here with more life experience than me. Just recalling how it fit together when I was growing up in the 80's regarding salaries and comfort of living
I remember regular unskilled jobs were below trades or public service jobs but the gap wasnt much.
Anyone with a degree( well maybe not a fine arts degree) was on a better wicket that the above. In fact getting into Uni was harder, they still had pretty rigid caps on the number of graduates they wanted, which ensured some sort of premium employment afterwards. Not just the doctor,dentist, vet etc. The regular science, accountant, or tech bloke went onto a semi-decent wicket right off.

I dropped out of a BSC first year at 19 and joined the army. I always considered going back one day to finish it. Fast forward 20 years and when i took a look at it, they had dropped all the educational standards, market was flooded including international students and science jobs were paying less than the admin chicks working at the same research places!
Even pharmacists now in a big chains are often making less than the warehouse supervisor out the back lol.
The electrical Engineers at Qld rail for example making less than a young tradie on the tools there.
In fact some Trades seemed to be ruling supreme and were beating most the above by about 10 years ago.
Then the last 4-5 years we have a new front runner, public service is paying themselves fat salaries of a sudden.
My brother was a cop on about 70k a year 5 years ago. Post covid the salary is more like 110k! A detective can pull 130k! The police commissioners are paid like bank CEO's, 700k salaries!!! Twice as much as some of the Armies top generals.

Anyway, not pointing to any specific scenario and this isnt a conspiracy rant either. We all probably have a version of the above to relate, just boggles my minds the changes the last 30 years...

[alexjones]

Having always worked in civil and mining so many of these operators are dumb as a post but are making 3k a week or more after tax. Driving a scraper or a dozer just moving topsoil getting 65 - 75 dollars per hour flat rates. Its crazy stuff.

[deye243]

Yep this country is f***ed just look at my son he's a carpet layer on $130 000 pa on ave the last 3 years and you wonder why your crappy new house cost you $600 000 + just imagine what the sparky and plumbers are getting any wonder their in new maxed up rangers.
Back when I was working with my brother in the70s and 80s all the trades were driving Ute's and vans at least 5 years old and making a good living .
Uni is just for lefty f*** wits unless it's a proper degree like medical and such all the other s**t should be tossed out unless you pay up front .

[bigrich]

I spent most of my life as a sheet metal worker. Years ago it was one of the lowest paid trades around. 20 years ago I was on $16.50 a hour, which was average hourly rate. Mates son in law talked me into working afternoon shift at the bradken foundry making railroad gear and massive excavator track pads. On labour hire I was on $24.50 a hour. Quite a jump in pay , gave up my trade to be a labourer on stupid money. I got out 12 years later due to health reasons and the pay rate had been eroded down by that time. Went back to my sheet metal trade and am currently on close to $40 a hour, which is decent money for what I do. Main reason for that is there’s a real shortage of skilled old school tradies in my trade these days. It’s hard on the body, specially hands and wrist, not many older fellas my age in it . What younger fellas are in it know stuff all but expect big bucks. So worker availability is a driving factor in pay rates as I see it .

[Wapiti]

I think it's fitting that tradespeople's payrates have gone up. The trades actually build this country in all fields, and if I think back to the 80's and 90's when renumeration didn't fit the contribution.
I was in it as a boilermaker and a tested welder on power/oil/gas, so much so that I worked to get a Mech Engineering degree thinking it would increase my pay. I ended up running construction all over the country and in Thailand and China and found that I was fighting engineers all the way who were quite literally incompetent, because they had absolutely no hands-dirty practical experience and no "big-picture" thinking. They thought a degree made them special and so many were arrogant clowns that I delighted in bringing back to earth.

Additionally, payrates for individual tradies in the building game have only a small percentage in the increases in building. Look elsewhere for the criminal unions and the raping costs of importing products that we now almost 100% rely on instead of homegrown quality building materials. As far as the cost of building homes and infrastructure goes, the cost blowouts elsewhere should be addressed.

[Billo]

If anyone wants to whinge about how much tradies charge well you can thank John Howard and co for that, they are the ones who defunded and shut down Tafes across this country and promoted Private colleagues who pump out unskilled monkeys.

As for what a fair level of remuneration in this country ? let's start with Nursing & Police, 1st year grad after 3 yrs of Uni gets $35hr

[Oldbloke]

If anyone wants to whinge about how much tradies charge well you can thank John Howard and co for that, they are the ones who defunded and shut down Tafes across this country and promoted Private colleagues who pump out unskilled monkeys.

As for what a fair level of remuneration in this country ? let's start with Nursing & Police, 1st year grad after 3 yrs of Uni gets $35hr

1000% Thats one of my pet gripes. Short term thinking to make private companies richer. It's a disaster.

In my profession people were getting a qualification in 3-6 months part time. And majority are utterly clueless. Took me almost 5 years at night school (tafe) and many weekends working on assignments.

[bladeracer]

Other than some labouring work I did when I was studying I've never worked for an hourly rate. I quoted complete jobs and I did them for that price, if I did them quicker than I expected to then I made more per hour, if they took longer then my hourly rate was lower.

[NTSOG]

Oldbloke: "In my profession people were getting a qualification in 3-6 months part time. And majority are utterly clueless."

Many times I have reminded young graduates that a diploma or a degree is simply a licence to begin learning one's profession and that real learning actually begins with one's first paying job.

Jim

[Flyonline]

... that real learning actually begins with one's first paying job.

Jim

I've been doing the same/similar job for 20+ years and I'm still learning

Met a few that have stopped learning/open to change after a while though

[Tiger650]

As regards Trades, particularly in Victoria if you are in on the ALP racket you are all good but if not you are not.
Sprinkler Fitters are a case in point, an essential job to be sure but on construction it is basically installing pre-fab pipework and equipment, they are ALP so recently scored very high wage increases which will keep them well ahead of we poor proles who pay the bills.
Speaking recently to a mate from Melbourne, he is a very experienced A grade Sparky teaching at a TAFE College, their highest paid Teacher is paid $15K less than a Primary School Teacher !
On one hand you have a bloke teaching a critical and trade with a high degree of accountability, if his students consistently fail a verifiable test he will be out of a job, the School Teacher never faces that and likely would only face criticism if she [almost invariably a she] fails to humiliate the young boys in her class.

[Wapiti]

Why is the sparky teaching Tafe for peanuts?
People are screaming for tradies
By doing so, he condones the terrible payrates..

[animalpest]

Just at this moment chatting online about this. TAFE have trained people to get their qualification in just one week.

How can you have been properly trained all the job facets - trapping (wide variety of species), shooting, animal surveys, 4x4, all the different poisons etc in one week gets me laughing.

[bigrich]

Just at this moment chatting online about this. TAFE have trained people to get their qualification in just one week.

How can you have been properly trained all the job facets - trapping (wide variety of species), shooting, animal surveys, 4x4, all the different poisons etc in one week gets me laughing.

The skills held by current “tradies” , and I use that term loosely, is a joke in a lot of trades. Quick slap dash coarses that teach them stuff all compared to what I was taught

[Wapiti]

An awful lot of jealousy and misinformation being thrown about.

[Peter988]

People mowing lawns are around $80 per hour now,

[Billo]

1st year Skool teachers $44/hr in NSW, Cleaners around Sydney charger $50-75/hr, Bus drivers are paid $45/hr.

[wanneroo]

I think it is much the same in a lot of the western world. Illegals or cashed up foreign nationals have driven up the cost of housing either through demand or just looking for a place to park money outside of countries like China. Government has printed too much money with more dollars chasing fewer goods and services causing inflation. Lots of people not wanting to do trades or skilled work because they would rather rest easy in an office.

In the USA, I saw a chart recently that from $15k to $75K for every dollar of government assistance and tax credits you lose, you gain a dollar in tax. I have experienced this thanks to getting canceled during Covid and my income fluctuating. The way the system is set up it's hard to get ahead as the taxes just eat you up.

So these days you have two choices, you can be the working poor and get "tax credits" and other assistance or you can be a high income earner. It used to be one could have a comfortable lifestyle in the middle class but for all the work you put in these days the rewards are not there.

That's why I am shifting towards being in business for myself and moving away from being a solopreneur working as an independent contractor on day rates for people and making a middle class income.

[Wapiti]

Look at your circumstances and try and ride the system. It will take a change, but you could find yourself using your potential taxes to pay your futures.
Really, you just burn yourself up looking at the negatives, when that energy could take you in the opposite direction. Pick the right small business, and everything could change. The right accountant can do that, a financial adviser won't.

[Bugman]

If anyone wants to whinge about how much tradies charge well you can thank John Howard and co for that, they are the ones who defunded and shut down Tafes across this country and promoted Private colleagues who pump out unskilled monkeys.

As for what a fair level of remuneration in this country ? let's start with Nursing & Police, 1st year grad after 3 yrs of Uni gets $35hr

1000% Thats one of my pet gripes. Short term thinking to make private companies richer. It's a disaster.

In my profession people were getting a qualification in 3-6 months part time. And majority are utterly clueless. Took me almost 5 years at night school (tafe) and many weekends working on assignments.

I could not agree more, with these two comments

[MtnMan]

Government has printed too much money with more dollars chasing fewer goods and services causing inflation.

.

True!

Banks create even more currency through fractional reserve lending and Australia is one of the few countries that have no laws stating a minimum reserve ratio a bank must maintain.
Our banks are probably loaning out over 95% of deposits. Please everyone, don't go to the bank all at the same time wanting to withdraw 'your money' (It's not your money when it's in the bank. You are an unsecured creditor)

Got to help fuel real estate somehow.
Double whammy- massive currency creation with the inflation it causes and rising property prices.