The pay is very good. Full-time apprentices make anywhere from 9$ to $27 an hour and once you have finished your apprenticeship and become a qualified journeyman, you may earn $36 to $45 + an hour. It all depends on how well you do your work and who you work for. (Contractor, yourself, etc.)
When becoming a tradesperson you don’t have to go to school for very long. Some people may even get an apprenticeship right after they graduate from high school. Most pre-apprenticeship programs are six months long and count as the first year of your apprenticeship.
By 2020 there will be a huge shortage of trades people in North America, and the work won’t stop coming. If you have your ticket, you are pretty much guaranteed work in the next lifetime. We’ll need trades people who are our fellow countryman, in order to not have to pay more to give away our own work to other countries.
I don’t know about you but knowing that I helped build someone’s house or a community recreational centre or any other structure that helps others go about their daily lives would be very gratifying. Being able to use your skills to help build something that is real, and you can touch it, it’s there in front of you, is a really amazing experience, and as a tradesperson you get to do that every day.
Most of your school/training is hands-on. You go to school and do book work for a very short amount of time, and the rest of the time is actual hands-on work. You gain your knowledge while on the job, which I think is a very good way to learn.
Being able to give back to the community is such a great feeling. Building the new condos or houses for new families to move into, or the new mall for people to shop in and also creates jobs for others as well.
Trades people are generally working as part of a team. The first crew comes in to do one part of the structure, and then the next, all the way till the last group is putting the finishing touches on whatever it was that was being worked on. At times solo jobs are available too. It has very diverse working conditions.
As a tradesperson you make other peoples idea’s and thoughts come to life. Someone thinks up the next skyscraper, or the next luxury cruise liner, then the trades people step in to make it happen, and it is only after this that these structures can be enjoyed by other people in the world.
