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Looking for decently-paid work with a good benefits package and job security? A job that can’t be sent to China or Bangladesh?
It looks like the most secure well-paid job in America, with the least educational requirements, is — garbage collector
America is willing to pay for a strong back, a good driving record and diminished olfactory receptors.
Nationwide, the average annual salary for a garbage truck driver is about $40,000, counting overtime and holiday pay, according to the Labor Department. Across all professions, high school dropouts earn about $24,000, while high school graduates average $30,000 annually, according to the U.S. Education Department.
Wages for trash workers have grown 18% nationally, which is faster than the 14% average for all workers since the recession “ended” in June 2009. That's because it's not easy to find people willing to do the work. Employers often have trouble finding enough qualified truck drivers, landfill operators or mechanics.
In New York City, workers can start at much higher rates. Experienced workers who are willing to work the graveyard shift can earn well over $100,000 a year, including overtime and holiday pay. The hours are long — often 55 hours or more a week — and the work is hard, but NYC sanitation workers have full health care coverage and 401(k) retirement accounts. They get severance pay if they leave the job, and nobody can ever send their jobs overseas. The down side is that getting older or being injured could force you to leave this field years before retirement age, with few marketable skills for any other work.
By comparison, the median income for master plumber installers average around $46,000 annually. Of course, you may have to be “on call” at all hours for emergencies. Residential electricians average around $54,000, but the field is changing as new technologies develop, and you’ll have to keep up.
There was a time when many Americans worked for the same company from leaving school until retirement. Some things about that were good: a steady job with people you know — some things about that were bad: your fortunes were entirely dependent on the financial health and goodwill of your employer.
Now, many young Americans will have to reinvent themselves at least once, and probably more like two or three times, by learning new skills in order to qualify for jobs that aren’t in existence — yet. Today’s employers are also far more likely to ruthlessly lay people off in the name of greater profits. That’s a business climate which will make it much harder to avoid periods of unemployment.
This year’s college grads will be entering a job market eager to receive them, especially those with degrees in business, engineering and computer science, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).
Employers said they plan to hire 11 percent more college graduates for U.S. jobs this year than in 2015, according to NACE’s Job Outlook 2016 survey.
This is good news for those who chose a major in this year’s popular fields, although I question how “eager to receive” this year’s grads the market is — American-based businesses haven’t seemed eager to hire at home for some time. And it may not be such a rosy picture for them in 5 or 10 years, especially for graduates in computer science, a field which has experienced rapid changes and boom-or-bust demand for workers. Most of the people my husband started out with in computer programming have long since had to look for work in other fields.
I’m not sure what any of this means, other than life in America is getting more complicated all the time, and I’m very glad I’m out of the job market.
To the Garbage Collectors in Bloomington, Indiana,
the First Pickup of the New Year
...
BY PHILIP APPLEMAN
...
(the way bed is in winter, like an aproned lap,
like furry mittens,
like childhood crouching under tables)
The Ninth Day of Xmas, in the morning black
outside our window: clattering cans, the whir
of a hopper, shouts, a whistle, move on ...
I see them in my warm imagination
the way I’ll see them later in the cold,
heaving the huge cans and running
(running!) to the next house on the street.
...
My vestiges of muscle stir
uneasily in their percale cocoon:
what moves those men out there, what
drives them running to the next house and the next?
Halfway back to dream, I speculate:
The Social Weal? “Let’s make good old
Bloomington a cleaner place
to live in—right, men? Hup, tha!”
Healthy Competition? “Come on, boys,
let’s burn up that route today and beat those dudes
on truck thirteen!”
Enlightened Self-Interest? “Another can,
another dollar—don’t slow down, Mac, I’m puttin’
three kids through Princeton?”
Or something else?
Terror?
...
A half hour later, dawn comes edging over
Clark Street: layers of color, laid out like
a flattened rainbow—red, then yellow, green,
and over that the black-and-blue of night
still hanging on. Clark Street maples wave
their silhouettes against the red, and through
the twiggy trees, I see a solid chunk
of garbage truck, and stick-figures of men,
like windup toys, tossing little cans—
and running.
...
All day they’ll go like that, till dark again,
and all day, people fussing at their desks,
at hot stoves, at machines, will jettison
tin cans, bare evergreens, damp Kleenex, all
things that are Caesar’s.
...
O garbage men,
the New Year greets you like the Old;
after this first run you too may rest
in beds like great warm aproned laps
and know that people everywhere have faith:
putting from them all things of this world,
they confidently bide your second coming.
...
Sources:
- U.S. Dept of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics — refuse collectors www.bls.gov/…,
-
U.S. Dept of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics — electricians www.bls.gov/…,
-
U.S. Dept of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics — plumbers www.bls.gov/...