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Comment by claudiulodro | Hacker News Reader

I blame the recession more than any stigma. There is a stigma around working at McDonalds, not skilled trades.

I and many other millenials definitely applied for trade apprenticeships back when we got out of high school. In my case after doing very well on the electrician apprentice entrance exams I was still 200th in line because of the recession, and they weren't really onboarding many new apprentices. I ended up going to college instead, am doing well as a software engineer, and there is a huge shortage of electricians now . . .

Personally, it would have definitely been nice to work with my hands and not have student loans.

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> I blame the recession more than any stigma. There is a stigma around working at McDonalds, not skilled trades.

For at least thirty years we have been telling our children that, in order to be successful, they need to go to college. We remind them of this constantly; college is the goal. That message implies that anything else is less than. There is definitely a stigma regarding trade skills, but not necessarily one we explicitly put forward.

Consider re reading the rest of the parent comment...

In what way does that alter or qualify the statement "There is a stigma around working at McDonalds, not skilled trades"?

>There is a stigma around working at McDonalds, not skilled trades.

There is absolutely a stigma related to trades for some groups of people. I know a lot of younger tech workers, and other college educated white collar workers, who would look down on jobs such as plumbers, mechanics, skilled laborers, etc.

I've found the stigma depends a lot on the area of the country. I used to live and work in New York, and there was a huge cultural stigma to not having completed college. There even seemed to be a stigma against people who owned their own companies doing electrical work or plumbing that were doing quite well. Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule, and not everyone felt that way.

Now that I'm in the Texas panhandle, most people appreciate skilled workers possibly even more than college degrees.

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