job related rant

[GoldenRivet]

I had this student pilot. Eat, breathe, sleep and defecate aviation type of guy. knew all the airliners, knows the route structure for most major airlines, what cities they serve what cities they don't.

started flying when he was 16 years old. I got him soloed, we became fast friends. he got his license and i was super proud because I had mostly worked with the weekend warrior types and this kid was on his way to the tippy top.

He got his private and instrument ratings. headed off to school and spent 4 and a half years getting an aerospace degree. Got his commercial single engine and multi engine under his belt. Finished his flight instructor certificate and instrument instructor certificate. graduated with that degree in hand.

he had this dream that one day he would be a major airline pilot.

after he got his school finished up, we worked together on a number of "charter flights" all over the south central and southwest USA. really knows his stuff. great pilot.

today he walked away from that dream after dedicating all that time and energy to it.

I think it finally occurred to him that he would be much better off - financially speaking - if he went out and worked in the mud of the oil field with his brother.

his brother spent the weekend with him, apparently he earns a six figure income doing some job out in the field. which job im not sure. and whether my buddy can get the exact same job and whether or not it will take him 10 years to get to that earnings potential - I dont know. but with looming school loans to pay back and absolutely ZERO job prospects for pilots of his age/experience/flight time he made the decision to do what he felt like he had to do.

I understand why he did it.

you cannot expect a man to go to work for $18,000 a year in this country doing a job that cost him well over $100,000 in school loans to get into, flying hundreds of thousands of passengers a year all over the United States, on that wage... 240+ days a year away from home barely able to afford to feed himself let alone any family he may or may not have.

i cant blame him either - this time next month i will very likely be entering the insurance business at the recommendation of a family friend. My fairly long and varied career in aviation becoming an occasional weekend hobby.

I just hate to see it come to this for the guy. I know how frustrating it can be.

I have told him 3 things he needs to do over the next 12-18 months to get an airline job.

1. get a flight instructing job as there are a couple of positions to be had around here.
2. build about 500 more hours over the next 12-18 months
3. get about 100 hours of multi engine flight time over that same period and apply for any regional airline job - he'd be sure to get ONE at least.

but he wont have it.

I guess it says a lot about our country and the aviation industry itself when a young man would be better off to squat in the mud and bore scope pipelines than fly multi million dollar aircraft all over the country.

:nope:

[Catfish]

Very bad, but sounds familiar.

Fact is, there are never enough jobs even for well-trained people. I would never have thought to serve in the Navy, then study with some success, and then never get a real job.

But face it, CNC machines and computers are making more and more jobs obsolete, and since there is so much offer manpower-wise, the relation of supply and demand is screwed up - there is no shortage even of well trained people, so companies can pay low prices, it's an open market.
There are doctors in machining and medicine, meanwhile driving a taxi to make a living. I am happy i don't have to do that, but if i had to .. you can be lucky if you get a job at all, nowadays :-?

[Freiwillige]

Your rant has inspired my rant that ties in with your rant.

Allot of the blame belongs to these trade schools that pump out thousands of graduates a year for a field that has a 3% yearly new hire rate. The market becomes saturated with skilled labor and as competition increases the wages plummet. Its a win win for the schools and businesses alike and a no win for the graduate\employee.

Its a sad state of affairs that our country has gotten itself into. I see no future for anybody anymore. The American dream is officially dead.

[GoldenRivet]

Your rant has inspired my rant that ties in with your rant.

Allot of the blame belongs to these trade schools that pump out thousands of graduates a year for a field that has a 3% yearly new hire rate. The market becomes saturated with skilled labor and as competition increases the wages plummet. Its a win win for the schools and businesses alike and a no win for the graduate\employee.

Its a sad state of affairs that our country has gotten itself into. I see no future for anybody anymore. The American dream is officially dead.

hammer - check


nail - check


head - BAM

[Freiwillige]

In fact my fiance has gone through the Certified Nursing Assistant program and completed it looking to get her foot in the door for nursing. Nobody is hiring because the field is so saturated, After three years she gave up.

So she looked to skip the basic experience requirements and jump right into nursing. It's a three to five year waiting list just to go to nursing school!

So she looked at being an x-ray tech on the advice of a friend and checked out the local program. They want 47k for 18 months of school and then to top it off they want you to work a year externship for free no pay! That school and its very same program was just 6k 5 years ago!

So she found a community college that's quite a drive to get to that has the same program but its only 9k but yet again its a three year waiting list just to get in!:damn:

[Freiwillige]

hammer - check


nail - check


head - BAM


Indeed!

[CCIP]

It's sad that it's like that in any field... you can name almost any "dream job" of 'ole days and I that is indeed by and large a dead dream to day. In the one that I grew up dreaming of getting into, teaching, things are also looking bad. I'm seeing so many good people give up, just crushed by the blood-sucking system that it is. I myself am on the verge of getting out... and it's really disheartening.

As someone who still has aviation fantasies, that is also rather disheartening. I guess someday the best I can hope for myself is being a weekend warrior like that, but it's a shame to see someone put in so much work and real talent, and walk away with nothing.

[Torplexed]

Yup. It's time to switch over to the 21st century career model. Do something really dumb or lame on YouTube...or better yet have your kid do something really dumb or lame and put it up on YouTube against their will. Then cash in on the inevitable publicity machine. Recent winners include Rebecca Black and Dental Visit Boy.

[August]

I don't know what trade schools you're talking about but the one I teach at (http://www.mtti.tec.ri.us/tabid/36/default.aspx) has to maintain a 76% placement rate or it looses it's accreditation and is no longer eligible for student loans. My course averages in the high 80's to low 90 percentile range.

[Lord_magerius]

Same sort of problem I had, I was training to become a sound engineer , then things started training. Rather than having a basic degree and a good chance of getting a job in the field. I would have to have God knows how many qualifications and about a one in a million shot of landing a job afterwards. I decided to quit whilst I was ahead and not fork out the stupid sums on tuition fees. :nope:

[Gargamel]

I recently left the Paramedic field for the same reasons. I made almost no money, was constantly in a high risk (driving, bio exposures, even been shot at a few times), High responsibility, high stress position, with little to now compensation.

I'm in the process of trying to get a factory job with my brother, who moves large cans of paint dye around and makes over twice what I did, and is far happier than I ever have been.

They say do a job you love and you'll never work again.

Not true. I loved my profession, and was pretty damn good at it. People regularly came to me for advice on various things. I was trying to get my instructors cert, but there was never enough interest overall to hold a class. I walked away a few months ago because I hated my career, but loved my profession.

[Gargamel]

I don't know what trade schools you're talking about but the one I teach at (http://www.mtti.tec.ri.us/tabid/36/default.aspx) has to maintain a 76% placement rate or it looses it's accreditation and is no longer eligible for student loans. My course averages in the high 80's to low 90 percentile range.

It's different in each profession I guess then.

The paramedic programs have to maintain a minimum registry PASS rate. Nobody cares about placement in this field.

Another problem with paramedic programs, the schools teach you how to pass the test, not how to be a good medic. It's a catch 22 though. I know a lot of these instructors, and they are damn good medics themselves. But if they taught how to be a good medic, nobody would pass the test so it'd be moot anyways. So they spend all their time focused on the book work, and not teaching real life techniques.

[CCIP]

I hated my career, but loved my profession.

That's a pretty pointed way of summing up what this thread is all about, yeah. Very sad :nope:

[GoldenRivet]

I don't know what trade schools you're talking about but the one I teach at (http://www.mtti.tec.ri.us/tabid/36/default.aspx) has to maintain a 76% placement rate or it looses it's accreditation and is no longer eligible for student loans. My course averages in the high 80's to low 90 percentile range.

Embry Riddle Aeronautical University

Spartan School of Aeronautics

Daniel Webster College Aviation Program

Southeastern OSU aviation studies program

just to name a few.

go talk to any of their "recruiting" guys and they will lay out a whole degree plan and tell you about all the 23 year old first officers making $150,000 a year flying boxes around at FedEx and any number of other stories about young people making tons of money in the aviation industry.

they pump up young impressionable 18-19-20 year old kids with this BS and they go into debt chasing this dream only to graduate, start paying against their loans, and have almost NO job prospects besides flight instruction.

then, the flight instruction industry suffers because if you lined 100 flight instructors against the wall... 90 of them are there just to get a quick 500-1000 hours and go elsewhere. they may or may not be decent teachers, they may or may not be interested in whether or not you get your license... and most of them are just wanting to go home with what little money they made, grab a seat at the kitchen table and total up their logbooks every night.

the other 10 are in it to teach you for the right reasons. they love to teach, they love to interact with students and would do anything to get you a license.

and the "job placement" of institutions such as the ones i have mentioned are a bit askew of reality - reason being is that they offer flight instruction positions to a fair number of recent graduates which boosts their "placement numbers" by a considerable amount i would imagine.

the reality of it is - i know more pilots who are working in the insurance, retail, food service, construction and petroleum businesses than i do who are working in aviation.

[nikimcbee]

sounds like me with teaching:shifty:. I discovered the semiconductor industry, and I gave teaching the "bird". Now I can't imagime teaching. Bratty kids, letigeous(sp:dead:) parents; no way!

[gimpy117]

Thats why im getting MY A&P. Its too expensive to fly anymore. especially at western. My advisor TOLD me that if i didn't have a lot of money don't fly here.
it's $150,000 at Western Michigan University to get a your commercial. and then you make $16,000 starting. The dream is over. Cheap airfare has killed the pilots salary.

[nikimcbee]

almost NO job prospects

This is where I'm REALLY pissed at my alma matter, for mass-producing teachers in a field, where there is practically no jobs! (foreign lang, specifically Russian)

[GoldenRivet]

Thats why im getting MY A&P. Its too expensive to fly anymore. especially at western. My advisor TOLD me that if i didn't have a lot of money don't fly here.
it's $150,000 at Western Michigan University to get a your commercial. and then you make $16,000 starting. The dream is over. Cheap airfare has killed the pilots salary.

good luck.

you should enjoy a fair amount of job security as the government mandates job security for A&P mechanics through the regulations.

every airplane is required to have specific maintenance done no matter how much or how little flying it does, as you are aware... theoretically, an airplane could sit in a hangar 90% of the year but would at least be required to have and annual inspection

however, nobody is required by regulations to be a passenger... thus the job of pilot is not "mandated".:D

[nikimcbee]

How saturated is the job market with pilots? It sounds like the same situation, but with social studies teachers:dead:. They are a dime a dozen:dead:.

...or you go work in a less desirable market. Be a bush pilot in Alaska:o.

[Bakkels]

I understand why he did it.

you cannot expect a man to go to work for $18,000 a year in this country doing a job that cost him well over $100,000 in school loans to get into, flying hundreds of thousands of passengers a year all over the United States, on that wage... 240+ days a year away from home barely able to afford to feed himself let alone any family he may or may not have.



Wait, I think I must be misinterpreting this. Are you talking about a commercial airline pilot job? Does that make 18k in the US nowadays? That's a ridiculously low wage.
Aside from that, I feel your frustration. It's a damn shame to see talent go to waste, especially if he's practically forced by economic circumstances.

[Bubblehead Nuke]

Even worse are people who show up for work and want to start at 75-80K a year and never do any of the 'gunt work' that any job field requires. Not a day of actual experience and they expect to max out the earning potential.

I do not know how many times I have told some young kid: "It does not matter that you graduated from 'such and such' school with high honors." You are gonna start here on the bottom of the heap and work up.

I seem to have a high turnover rate because I do not give in and give them the pay they feel they deserve. They think the grass is greener elsewhere and I *WISH* I could be there when reality smacks them in the forehead. Over half come back within 6 months and ask if they could work for my company (and me) again.

[TLAM Strike]

...or you go work in a less desirable market. Be a bush pilot in Alaska:o.

Or fly MiGs for Qaddafi... :03:
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/9114/larafmisurataab29mar11.jpg

[GoldenRivet]

Wait, I think I must be misinterpreting this. Are you talking about a commercial airline pilot job? Does that make 18k in the US nowadays? That's a ridiculously low wage.
Aside from that, I feel your frustration. It's a damn shame to see talent go to waste, especially if he's practically forced by economic circumstances.

No he didnt have a commercial airline pilot job... he did not have the required flight time to get many jobs like that, and there are just not many places that take a low time pilot hiring at the moment... he was just doing odd flying jobs when they came available, which is not something that comes up frequently.

as for the airline pilot pay i talked about:

take a look at Mesa airlines (http://www.mesa-air.com/mesa.asp#uex), they are probably the lowest paying regional carrier in the United States. (remember... just because the airplane says United Express or US Airways express on the side doesnt mean the airplane has anything to do with those companies other than a code share agreement behind the scenes)

year one new hire first officer makes $19.00 per flight hour with a guarantee of 76 hours of flying per month. The pilot may fly more or less than the guarantee.

so, before taxes that translates to $1,444 per month - or - $17,328 per year. Remember this is before taxes and other costs like insurance benefits etc.

but, if you hang in there... within 5 years you will reach the salary cap of the first officer position at an annual income of $23,712 - again before taxes etc.

one of the higher paying regional airlines is American Eagle.

new hire annual salary just over $21,000

salary cap for the first officer position there comes at 8 years at $32,659

it takes between 5-7 years to get a captain seat depending on the carrier, and once a captain seat is secured, the pay rate usually increases by about 45%

The airline industry is set up for "movement" meaning that regional airlines hire pilots who will be First officers. as senior captains leave the airline to go to places like FedEx, American, Delta etc this creates a vacancy and everyone moves up in seniority. eventually the new hire pilot has moved up in seniority enough to become a captain.

for the past 10 years there has been little to no movement. American Airlines for example - has not hired a "new" pilot in about 10 years.

at the moment, there are pilots at the regional level who have been with those companies for so long that they are making a decent living... and it is simply not worth it to many of them to resign to take a new job at another company because they will take a massive paycut for the first 3 or 4 years of employment at the new company.

the result is "stagnation" - everyone is inching their way up the seniority list, and hiring and shedding of pilots is only about 10-20 per month. ideally regional carriers should be shedding and hiring about 60 to 80 pilots per month if not more.

EDIT:

he is qualified as an instructor because the school's degree program required the flight instructor certificate - not because he wanted to be a CFI. I told him to bite the bullet and flight instruct... he does not want to do this because he feels that he would not be a good instructor because he has no instructing experience.

my logic is that every flight instructor, at some point had "zero" experience as a flight instructor. at some point you need to do like i did so many years ago when faced with a course load of new students... 1) give yourself a pep talk in the mirror 2) when that doesnt work, vomit. 3) wipe the vomit off your chin and go out there and just try to enjoy the fact that someone is paying you to fly something.

after a couple of months, it wouldnt bother him any more.


on the plus side, he may yet do that. but he needs something to pay the school loans off with and humpin it around the pattern in 100 degree texas heat isnt going to bring him that many sweat sogged dollars.

[Platapus]

Even worse are people who show up for work and want to start at 75-80K a year and never do any of the 'gunt work' that any job field requires. Not a day of actual experience and they expect to max out the earning potential.

I do not know how many times I have told some young kid: "It does not matter that you graduated from 'such and such' school with high honors." You are gonna start here on the bottom of the heap and work up.



I might as well hop on the Rant-o-Van.

We had a discussion about this on one of our intranet forums. Young people are hired into my industry (Geopolitical Analysis) but leaving after 2 years because they are bored or are not being used to "their" capability.

I have 27 years experience, a Master's Degree (ABD on my Doctorate) and I am only slightly above average in experience/education. I know that I, and many of my co-workers sound like curmudgeons (and we are), when we talk about it taking years to even start getting a reputation in my industry.

When I started out in the 1980's grunt, crappy research projects were all there was. It took me about 5 years before getting my first nice project and I was lucky to get that. It was actually a research project no one else wanted, but, through hard work by my team, turned out to be pretty cool.

Yeah, I am a crotchity old man, but the facts are clear. In my industry, it takes years to start establishing a reputation that gets you the good assignments. The kids are graduating with their Bachelor's degree and zero experience and expecting not only the six figure salary but also the pick of the projects. :nope:

WTF? Everyone else had to work up from the grunt work. Did we like getting crappy assignments? Of course not. We hated it. But we looked at it from an "investment" point of view. If I do well on the crap assignments, soon I will "graduate" to the better assignments, and later even better assignments.

It seems like the younger generation wants, and I hate to use an over used term, instant gratification. They want the cool projects right away and they expect the better assignments even though they don't have the experience and judgment to handle them.

So what is happening is that our industry is losing potentially good analysts who are unwilling to accept the concept of working up from the bottom and the value of experience. This is not good for my industry as us curmudgeons are getting a bit long in the tooth and we are starting to die off.

One of the problems is that PA has lousy PR. :)

Political Analysis is a job that everyone thinks they can do and yes, as we tell people, anyone can be a political analyst, the question is can they be a good political analyst? What is the difference between a Political Analyst and a good Political Analyst?

About 20 years and a doctorate. :D

The bottom line of my rant is that there are jobs out there that require experience. No college can grant 20+ years experience. The only way to get experience is to start at day one and earn the experience. There are no short cuts, there are no fast-tracks to experience.

Sometimes I think the younger generation in my industry either don't understand this, or don't want to accept it.

Hey, if there is one thing a curmudgeon can do is rant right? :shucks:

[August]

flight instruction positions to a fair number of recent graduates

I've heard of this practice in the big corporate schools. Nothing wrong with hiring a graduate but he'd need at least 15-20 years field experience to go with it before he would be considered for a teaching gig at our school.

[GoldenRivet]

The bottom line of my rant is that there are jobs out there that require experience. No college can grant 20+ years experience. The only way to get experience is to start at day one and earn the experience. There are no short cuts, there are no fast-tracks to experience.

I couldnt agree more.

In the aviation industry - in theory - you have flown as a flight instructor, or you have worked for a crappy small talk cargo carrier hauling checks through bad weather in the dead of night, or you have flown business owners around in small corporate aircraft or any number of things before you get to even the regional airline level.

by the time you get to the airline level, hauling live bodies around the nation, my opinion is that a person deserves more than 17-20K a year.

not that this young man was complaining about the low pay etc... his complaint is that there is nothing for him out there in the world in his chosen trade.

I know what he means, i have been standing there at the airport looking at the airplanes with a whopping 300 hours in my logbook wondering how in the hell i was going to manage to get a job.

the catch 22 is every job is looking for a pilot with 4 times the flight time he has... and his question is "how do i get the flight time if every job out there requires you to already have it?"

the answer has universally been, banner towing, glider towing, or flight instruction. those are the three jobs any newly minted commercial pilot can go out and do with absolutely no experience, with rock bottom flight time.

i have repeatedly suggested instructing as it is the easiest of the three jobs to snatch up - but he lacks confidence in his ability to teach others.

oh well

i wish him all the success in the world, he is a hard worker.

i guess on some level i can sympathize with the young folks.

i always took the attitude that "they have to earn it just like we did" but i have come to discover that for many of them... the cost of living is just so damned high that they need the higher salary as an adjustment to the higher cost of living.

i remember some friends of mine who got based in LAX... they said their whole class of new hires all 8 of them lived in the same 2 bedroom apartment because thats the only way they could afford to live in LA. some of them even put sleeping bags in the floor of the closets (nobody used closets for storing clothes due to living out of suitcases) and that was their home.

maybe i just have higher standards for the way people who have invested their life and driven themselves into debt just to find work deserve to live.

[Platapus]

So much for the myth of the "glamorous" life of an Airline Pilot. :nope:

<20K does stynk.

Do Pilots get any type of per diem when they have to stay outside their home?

[GoldenRivet]

my per diem was $1.55 per hour

IIRC that was for up to 14 hours per day. :06:

anyhow, it really amounted to enough to buy food while on duty.

[Platapus]

That does stynk :nope:

[Castout]

Aww sounds bad.

Same reason why anyone would want to become a US president :hmmm: :O:

The pay is so small, the working hour is like forever and more, the stress is over the roof, the prestige and friends are short lived while the enemies are eternal.:D

The salvation comes from the seminars and selling books that come afterward :O:

Well but military chiefs get a much better positions in the defense industry . . . .

[Armistead]

Geesh, I have painters that make 40K a year....

[antikristuseke]

I make 6840 usd a year, that's working 200+ hour months with overtime pay included. 18,000 a year starting off even with the amount of money it takes to qualify does not seem that bad to be honest.

[Catfish]

From 1.22 on (not that the rest is bad at all)

The American Dream:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

Not that is was an especially american dream, but it has died here as well, thanks to the lobbyists and letting money govern all.

I just don't think it's comedy anymore. People who get 60 - 70 years old usually know how stuff works, and then they die and a lot of young and dumb successors enter the scene and are fooled and tricked again, doing all wrong again and never opening their mouth. Until they are 60 years old.

Greetings,
Catfish

[Penguin]

i cant blame him either - this time next month i will very likely be entering the insurance business at the recommendation of a family friend. My fairly long and varied career in aviation becoming an occasional weekend hobby.


Sorry to hear that, GR, sounds like it was your dream job. At least you are trying to keep flying, so if the times in your business become better, you'll have still have experience, whcih will be a benefit if you decide to start again.

I don't know what trade schools you're talking about but the one I teach at (http://www.mtti.tec.ri.us/tabid/36/default.aspx) has to maintain a 76% placement rate or it looses it's accreditation and is no longer eligible for student loans. My course averages in the high 80's to low 90 percentile range.

Sounds sensible to prevent an over-supply of certain trades. How do they measure the placement rate? Is the quota filled when people get any job, or only when they get a job in the trade they learned?



take a look at Mesa airlines (http://www.mesa-air.com/mesa.asp#uex), they are probably the lowest paying regional carrier in the United States. (remember... just because the airplane says United Express or US Airways express on the side doesnt mean the airplane has anything to do with those companies other than a code share agreement behind the scenes)

year one new hire first officer makes $19.00 per flight hour with a guarantee of 76 hours of flying per month. The pilot may fly more or less than the guarantee.

so, before taxes that translates to $1,444 per month - or - $17,328 per year. Remember this is before taxes and other costs like insurance benefits etc.


:o
Do they get other benefits, like health insurance? And what about the pre- and after flight hours, checks and stuff?

[August]

How do they measure the placement rate? Is the quota filled when people get any job, or only when they get a job in the trade they learned?


Employment must be training related and they must keep the job for at least 90 days.

My only complaint is they don't distinguish between a person who is looking for job and a person who won't.

[Penguin]

Employment must be training related and they must keep the job for at least 90 days.

ah, thanks, and which time period do you have to find a job?


My only complaint is they don't distinguish between a person who is looking for job and a person who won't.

they also don't consider this when they calculate the unemployment rate ;)

I was looking for some numbers from Germany, but they are hard to find. The trade schools are all public schools, so it's harder to get infos, plus they love to calculate the unempmoyment rate lower than it is.

From the class of my trade school, only a minority started to work directly in the related trade. Some people - including me - worked in a different area, while others went to university, since our diploma also qualified to study. So a number of those university students started to work in their trade much later.

[August]

ah, thanks, and which time period do you have to find a job?

Also 90 days.


they also don't consider this when they calculate the unemployment rate ;)

True, but in this case it's the government telling us that regardless of the reason that a person does not seek employment in the field, including pure sloth, it's held against us.

[GoldenRivet]

I make 6840 usd a year, that's working 200+ hour months with overtime pay included. 18,000 a year starting off even with the amount of money it takes to qualify does not seem that bad to be honest.

yeah but what is your cost of living?

it has to be all relative.

to put it into perspective, the cheapest rent in my town on an apartment is still going to run clost to $8,000 USD / Year


Do they get other benefits, like health insurance? And what about the pre- and after flight hours, checks and stuff?

They give you medical and dental insurance and they will match whatever you deposit into your 401K out of your check.

You also receive travel benefits at a reduced rate, and jumpseat privileges on most airlines.

[antikristuseke]

More than I can afford so I am forced to live with my mother.
Living cost here is not that far from the US or western Europe, also what kind of an apartment are you talking about here?

[GoldenRivet]

More than I can afford so I am forced to live with my mother.
Living cost here is not that far from the US or western Europe, also what kind of an apartment are you talking about here?

One bedroom, one bath. Kitchen. Livingroom and 2 closets. Not much.

What are you doing for work if you dont mind my asking?

There are some jobs here that only pay $8-10K a year but those are generally held by high school students types.

Of corse that's the difference between a job and a career... A career is something that can sustain you in the long term.

[sharkbit]

Concerning pay rates for first officer pay at the airlines that GR was talking about earlier:
My first job out of A&P school was working for a US Air regional airline in Jacksonville, Florida in 1988. I started at $7.75 an hour. I made more money than first officers flying Dash 8's.

From GR's post, it sounds like things have changed all that much in the last 23 years.

After that crash of the Dash 8 in New York a few years ago when the FO's and captain's experience was an issue, I remember FO pay was brought up. My wife couldn't believe how little money FO's made.

:)

[Gargamel]

I make 6840 usd a year, that's working 200+ hour months with overtime pay included. 18,000 a year starting off even with the amount of money it takes to qualify does not seem that bad to be honest.

It's all about cost of living, as mentioned. 7k here is about half of poverty level. That wouldn't even cover a decent apartment for 2 for a year, and I live in a fairly cheap area.

Our minimum wage rates are around $6/hr, maybe a touch higher, haven't checked recently. you're making around the equivalent of 3.50/hr, and that's just at 40 hour weeks. With the amount of hours your working, you're earning even less.

But it's all relative. Maybe where you're from the cost of living is low enough that $1/hr lets you live like a king.

[CCIP]

But it's all relative. Maybe where you're from the cost of living is low enough that $1/hr lets you live like a king.

I think it's generally true that European costs of living are, on average, higher than US. They're about same in the large US cities, but otherwise US is noticeably cheaper to live in. Heck, it's noticably cheaper to live in the US than in Canada, even...

Once you take out my academic expenses (which are mandatory to my keeping a job in the first place), I live on roughly $14,000 a year. Actually I live pretty well on that, but that is purely conditional on the fact that I maintain the lifestyle of a transient half-bum with very few possessions except my PCs, books and clothes. If I had a family, I would be thoroughly screwed. Or they would be thoroughly screwed. Not that it'd be pretty after I graduate - given my line of work, even in the best case scenario I will be making around 30,000 until I'm 35. Not great for family prospects in this culture, given the cost of living, either - and that's for someone who will have spent over 12 years in post-secondary education :( Which is why I always break out in laughter when people envy that "professor pay" I'll supposedly be getting with my PhD!

Which is funny, because when I was growing up in Russia, my family lived in total poverty and as a kid I enjoyed the heck out of it - and my parents were okay. My family's income for the first 14 years of my life never exceeded an equivalent of $5,000 with zero savings (and was often well below that, even), even with relatively high cost of living. So maybe a lot of it also does come down to culture and expectation as well...

[DarkFish]

It's all about cost of living, as mentioned. 7k here is about half of poverty level. That wouldn't even cover a decent apartment for 2 for a year, and I live in a fairly cheap area.

Our minimum wage rates are around $6/hr, maybe a touch higher, haven't checked recently. you're making around the equivalent of 3.50/hr, and that's just at 40 hour weeks. With the amount of hours your working, you're earning even less.

But it's all relative. Maybe where you're from the cost of living is low enough that $1/hr lets you live like a king.He already answered what his cost of living is:03:
"More than I can afford so I am forced to live with my mother.
Living cost here is not that far from the US or western Europe, also what kind of an apartment are you talking about here?"

If it indeed is the same as in western Europe, it's at least some 3000-3500 euros a year. I've got an 11m2 room (some 110ft2) with shared kitchen and bathroom, and it costs €275 a month.

[CCIP]

If it indeed is the same as in western Europe, it's at least some 3000-3500 euros a year. I've got an 11m2 room (some 110ft2) with shared kitchen and bathroom, and it costs €275 a month.

Lucky! My room is 9m2, and I pay €340 a month for that here in Canada (and that's still considered a good deal here...) :doh:

[antikristuseke]

One bedroom, one bath. Kitchen. Livingroom and 2 closets. Not much.

What are you doing for work if you dont mind my asking?

There are some jobs here that only pay $8-10K a year but those are generally held by high school students types.

Of corse that's the difference between a job and a career... A career is something that can sustain you in the long term.

An apartment like that would cost about two thirds of my monthly paycheck to rent here, and that is without the cost of water and electricity and garbage disposal included. I can't even afford a one room apartment.
Anyway at the moment I am working as a security guard because there really is no other job available for me at the moment, 2 years of metalworking experience means nothing, the fact that I know computers inside and out means nothing and my skills as a recon infantryman aren't really marketable.

Because my knee went that put an end to my prospective military career, so there went that plan, so basically the spot I am in is my own fault on one hand and faulty anatomy on the other.

But I have not given up so it's back to school with me this fall.