Tradies' pay

Just because you don't like what Deltaberry has to say doesn't mean he's incorrect. We both know plenty of graduates who earn $100,000+ in their first year. They hate their life and their job, but they still earn $100,000 at 22-23.
 
Maybe I'm not as intelligent as you both, but I don't entirely get it? One day I would love to own my own business and have people working for me. But being 21 newly graduated with limited experience, how do you suggest I do this?

You have to start somewhere?

And I can't believe you said a 150k salary was dismal, are you living under a rock? :eek: Maybe its not good enough for you to earn that at 30 but it would be good enough for me - and I would consider myself lucky to be earning that.

I don't know about other people but I want to make my money through investing (hence being on a property forum) and use my salary as cash flow to support this.

Well according to you I may have it all wrong - but there is no way in hell I would take any of your advice.

I'm just responding to your comment that the number is good and telling you that from my experience it's not.

As I said, if you put a number out there and pass judgment on it, people will comment on it. Just because I disagree with you means I live under a rock? How much validation do you need? A bit self-gratifying isn't it...

What can I say except for good luck earning that number at 30, since you said you'll be lucky to earn it.
 
Money aside, the average office worker that doesn't excecise is generally in a lot worse physical shape / fitness compared to the average active tradie. With exception of long term health issues such ad back issues or breathing in crap, a tradie in fresh air keeping fit and active can actually pay dividends long term compared to sitting behind a computer. Office workers that go out of their way to keep fit can have the best of both worlds.

No point earning 100k in an office if you're overweight, overstressed and overweight.

Mentally burnt out each night and fat

or

Physically burnt out, but mentall ok, and no need to squeeze 2 hours in the evening at gym.

Assuming you're on similar dollars, which one would you rather be from a health point of view?

I think 30 years ago the average male was a lot more handy, and wouln't be calling some-one over at $80+ per hour to fix every trivial thing. Current skills and attitudes has risen the demand and rate they charge.

You can outsource your accounting to India and just have one guy in Australia check it over and sign off on it. Physical local skilled labour, you can never outsource that.

Personal home / tradie services will continue to boom as we are time poor, and skill poor or combination of both. The tradies will call the shots and set the market when there is a shortage and stuff simply has to be done.
 
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Just because you don't like what Deltaberry has to say doesn't mean he's incorrect. We both know plenty of graduates who earn $100,000+ in their first year. They hate their life and their job, but they still earn $100,000 at 22-23.

I am not disputing that there are a number of graduates that earn over 100k. But these are not just "good" salaries, they are "exceptional" salaries. For example a few of my mates from college that just graduated 2 of them are engineers off to WA mines starting on 115k, another friend is a dentist starting around the 100k mark.

But they deserve to be earning much more than me - they did a harder and more skilled degree than I. And there is a strong demand for it. They are obviously going to get paid more for working in the mines - the mining guys said they have to work 12.5 hour days in the middle of no where - and they have to be offered this much salary otherwise people wouldn't do it. But they want to do it and have said they can't wait to get there, so good on them - I look forward to catching up with them on their massive boats one day.

There would also be law and some past commerce students from college doing 80+ hour weeks who would be earning more than 100k. But like you said they have to work incredibly hard.

The point is even if 65k is just around the Australian average - I think it is a good salary for a first year out on a 40 hour week. To be earning the average salary as you just start gives you decades to increase - I wonder how many Australians are older than 35 and are just earning the average.


I would classify starting salaries over 100k to be better than just 'good'. I would class them as "very good" or "exceptional".

But as deltaberry says, maybe I am just crazy. But you know what I am happy with the prospect and I think I am fortunate to be given the opportunity.

And just out of curiosity Aaron, do you think a salary of 150k a year at the age of 30 is dismal?
 
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YPG - If you think it's good, that's great. It's just a label.

You can call $100k good and $65k ordinary. Or you can call $100k exceptional and $65k good. Or you can do it like me, and call $100k ordinary and $65k dismal.

If it matters so much to you and helps you stop stressing so you can sleep at night, then feel free to use the second set of labels.
 
What can I say except for good luck earning that number at 30, since you said you'll be lucky to earn it.


Cheers mate - if your still around in 9 years I'll let you know how it all worked out,

Clearly you earned a lot more than 150k when you were 30 (or whatever the equivalent was at that time, as I have no idea how old you are) or were you on a "dismal" salary too, like many others.
 
YPG - If you think it's good, that's great. It's just a label.

You can call $100k good and $65k ordinary. Or you can call $100k exceptional and $65k good. Or you can do it like me, and call $100k ordinary and $65k dismal.

If it matters so much to you and helps you stop stressing so you can sleep at night, then feel free to use the second set of labels.



In 2010, the median starting salary for bachelor degree graduates aged less than 25 and in their first full-time employment rose to $49,000 from $48,000 in 2009.

• The median starting salary for male graduates remained at $50,000 for 2010.
• The median starting salary for female graduates increased by $1,000 to $48,000 (see Table 1 on page 3).
• Dentistry remained the highest-paid field
of education at $75,000, followed by:
m optometry ($70,000)
m engineering ($56,000)
m medicine ($55,000).

http://www.graduatecareers.com.au/ucm/groups/content/documents/document/gca002415.pdf

Well this doesn't look good for the majority of these graduates in Australia - 95% of these people must have been earning "dismal" salaries.



Thanks for your concern about my sleep at night.
 
Money aside, the average office worked that doesn't excercise is generally in a lot worse physical shape / fitness compared to the average active tradie. With exception of long term health issues such a back issues or breathing in crap, a tradie in fresh air keeping fit and active can actually pay dividends long term compared to sitting behind a computer. Office workers that go out of their way to keep fit can have the best of both worlds.

No point earning 100k in an office if you're overweight, overstressed and overweight.

Mentally burnt out each night and fat

or

Physically burnt out, but mentall ok, and not need to squeeze 2 hours in the evening at gym.

Assuming your on similar dollars, which one would you rather be from a health point of view?

I think 30 years ago the average male was a lot more handy, and wouln't be calling some-one over at $80+ per hour to fix every trivial thing. Current skills and attitudes has risen the demand and rate they charge.

You can outsource your accouting to India and just have one guy in Australia check it over and sign off on it. Physical local skilled labour, you can never outsource that.

Personal home / tradie services will continue to boom as we are time poor, and skill poor or combination of both. The tradies will call the shots and set the market when there is a shortage and stuff simply has to be done.

I completely agree with this abby. I think you raised some valid points - I would definetly think that the average tradie would be a lot healthier than the average office worker - unless he smokes all day, drinks rum tins and eats pies from meals on wheels like our family builder haha - top bloke though! :rolleyes:
 
Hahaha ok ok YPG, thanks for the essay and statistics. You're right - it's so much $$. Good job high roller.

Surely you can do much better than that.

That is clearly not what I was after - and I have never said that I was a high roller or doing outstanding or anything of the sort.

I just said I thought I was doing well with the 65k first year out and thought I was lucky. You came out saying that I was a "crazy one" and 150k at 30 was a "dismal" salary.

Up to this point we have been arguing our different views - but from now on if you have got nothing to add with any substance or relevance then your probably just wasting both our time.

I just thought maybe you would like skip through and read a few pages, if you don't want to then don't bother.

Cheers
 
Haha that's ok - I don't read those things anymore because I've seen plenty in the past.

What you should be doing is benchmarking what the lowest figure is and what the highest figure is, and then asking yourself which end of the spectrum you're closer to. If you're closer to the lower end then it's not good, even though there may be a lot of people closer to the the low end than to the top end. Simple as that.

To put in to perspective, in Africa most people are starving. Does that mean having but one piece of bread extra to eat is therefore "good"? Hardly.
 
Most people earn in a similar range for what we call full time work.

So from here it is not what you earn, but how you spend / invest thereafter.

It is human nature, the more you earn, the more you spend. So the higher income person isn't necessararily better off / happier. How do you measure such a thing anyhow?

There are countess people stepping down the high paid role to a happy / more fulfilfilling role at much less pay.

Best to work backwards on how to make the most of what you do earn or improve on it if not happy, rather than only focus on or judge people on what the earn.

There is more to humanity value than simply their yearly take home pay. Some-one may earn 65k but declare income through familty trust and the offset is more equivalent to 80k? or their appreciating assets may be growing at 40k per year. 65k on paper but 100k indirectly.

Let get in context here.

Think of the hunder and gather times, was that a big stress in their life?
 
There are people out there like an 18yo family friend of ours who's earned his first Million by age 17 years (absolutely true as we know/have known 4 generations of this family and see him regularly).

So this confirms to me anything under 1M at 21yo is p$$ poor :p.
 
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Is this through the help of his family? Parents help him a deposit?

Otherwise if he has done it on his own thats incredible. Good on him
 
Why does a degree entitle anyone to high pay?
All you have to do is pay the fees and turn up to get one.

Why can't a plumber or electrician be smart or intelligent?
A degree does not make anyone smarter, i would argue it's makes many stupid, ignorant and arrogant.

Why should a pen pusher get more $$ the sheet shoveller?

Why should a gov worker who never worked a hard days work get more than someone who cleans, and spends their day covered in their garbage?
 
Is this through the help of his family? Parents help him a deposit?

Otherwise if he has done it on his own thats incredible. Good on him

If someone gave me a deposit when I was 18 I'd have blown the whole lot through either bad investment choices or at really good partying and buying lots of toys for 18 yr olds, and I'm not that much stupider than your average person....

Whether he got help or got $ and therefore did not do it on his own, or wether he did odo it all on his own - good on him, he did better than the average would have done.
 
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