Why is there a big shortage of welders?

Y Fan Wen

Member
Location
N W Snowdonia
Isn't 12 hours a day 5 days a week illegal?
I would have thought 35hrs a week would have been plenty welding full time. No wonder they cant get staff.
We used to have the 'working time directive' didn't we.
Now we are free to set our own hours.
Won't be long before the 'dark satanic mills' are repatriated from the far east and kids are going up chimneys again.
 

Marko1259

Member
Trade
The main reason why no one is coming into welding is because of the pay. in 1999 as a fully qualified welder I was earning £10.90 an hour and the minimum wage was approximately £3.50. Now the wage for a qualified welder is about £13 - £15 per hour and minimum wage is over £10. Aldi are paying £12 per hour to stack shelves. It's a dirty job I can totally understand why no one wants to do it when the wage isn't anything like what it used to be. I run a fabrication workshop of 12 welder fabricators, I dread it when they leave as the unskilled muppets that come for an interview are a joke. No skill, No training but they have welded their mums car once! Unfortunately we have left it too late, there are very few SKILLED welder fabricators and will get harder to find over the next 10 years.
 

Rich_ard

Member
I don't think it has anything to do with requiring certificates, a lot of industrial welding will require the welders to qualify against a specific weld procedure so having generic certificates probably are not a blocker.

I would say its classed as dirty manual labour with relatively poor pay in comparison to other options and it is just not seen as desirable work these days to the masses. Same reason that it can be difficult to find good labour on farms these days.
Money talks. Amount of farmers who will say your making more than me! Which obviously crap as you wouldn't go working to someone else if you didn't have to!
 

ford 7810

Member
Location
cumbria
The main reason why no one is coming into welding is because of the pay. in 1999 as a fully qualified welder I was earning £10.90 an hour and the minimum wage was approximately £3.50. Now the wage for a qualified welder is about £13 - £15 per hour and minimum wage is over £10. Aldi are paying £12 per hour to stack shelves. It's a dirty job I can totally understand why no one wants to do it when the wage isn't anything like what it used to be. I run a fabrication workshop of 12 welder fabricators, I dread it when they leave as the unskilled muppets that come for an interview are a joke. No skill, No training but they have welded their mums car once! Unfortunately we have left it too late, there are very few SKILLED welder fabricators and will get harder to find over the next 10 years.
Is it not the same as every thing no one wants to get their hands dirty. they’re all educated different nowadays, there doesn’t seem to be any interest in practical type work. you’re quite right, we have left it too late ,but good money does talk. I was talking to a young man, the other day he was welding in a ram repairing shop said, he quite enjoyed it. wife’s nephew trained to be a welder, and he is now driving a loading shovel only for the money I like welding, but my hands are permanently mucky.😀
 

czechmate

Member
Mixed Farmer
The main reason why no one is coming into welding is because of the pay. in 1999 as a fully qualified welder I was earning £10.90 an hour and the minimum wage was approximately £3.50. Now the wage for a qualified welder is about £13 - £15 per hour and minimum wage is over £10. Aldi are paying £12 per hour to stack shelves. It's a dirty job I can totally understand why no one wants to do it when the wage isn't anything like what it used to be. I run a fabrication workshop of 12 welder fabricators, I dread it when they leave as the unskilled muppets that come for an interview are a joke. No skill, No training but they have welded their mums car once! Unfortunately we have left it too late, there are very few SKILLED welder fabricators and will get harder to find over the next 10 years.

Not just dirty. More seriously it ruins your lungs and eyes ☹️
 

Runs Like a Deere

Member
Mixed Farmer
Money talks. Amount of farmers who will say your making more than me! Which obviously crap as you wouldn't go working to someone else if you didn't have to!

You are right in that money talks and what the farmers in your above example are missing is that the labour needs to "take home" more money than they do because in most cases they don't have all the little benefits that go with working for yourself. Paid for farm house, truck / jeep that is taxed, fuelled and insured by the business etc etc

In my job I am paid a salary and am PAYE in Tax. Yes the highline number is a good number but when you subtract tax and national insurance I am most definitely worse off than someone with a trade who has gone self employed.

Going back to the topic, the UK has an problem where the required standard of living demands a level of pay that when converted into goods produced is uncompetitive in the global market and we have had successive governments from both sides of the political spectrum that believe you can just import everything you need and neglect the local market / industry
 

ford 7810

Member
Location
cumbria
You are right in that money talks and what the farmers in your above example are missing is that the labour needs to "take home" more money than they do because in most cases they don't have all the little benefits that go with working for yourself. Paid for farm house, truck / jeep that is taxed, fuelled and insured by the business etc etc

In my job I am paid a salary and am PAYE in Tax. Yes the highline number is a good number but when you subtract tax and national insurance I am most definitely worse off than someone with a trade who has gone self employed.

Going back to the topic, the UK has an problem where the required standard of living demands a level of pay that when converted into goods produced is uncompetitive in the global market and we have had successive governments from both sides of the political spectrum that believe you can just import everything you need and neglect the local market / industry
Some how they won’t support people who work you can’t do this you can’t do that okay health and safety is a good idea A lot of other legislation is just pure crap. And it’s the working people who have to pay the taxes to keep the buggers that don’t work they want your wages back in anyway, possible employed or self-employed. then throw money at stupid things that just don’t add up .good God, we are in a ridiculous situation, but this is starting to hit my sore spot now.👍🏻
 
Apprenticeships have been abused. Young folk who have the gumption to say can you train me so you pay em fudge all and then wonder why they don't want to do it.

If you're employing a guy you pay the going rate for a man, trained or untrained. Then the onus is on the employer to train them and get them to a useful standard as rapidly as possible. I remember businesses proudly saying they were 'investors in people'. What you mean employing 18, 19 and 20 year old for fudge all money? I used to earn more money than they did driving a tractor with essentially no skills or responsibilities. I can recall the conversations in the pub like it was yesterday.
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
Maybe they just aren’t paid enough ?

mate of mine was taking home $250K a year, a few years ago, doing specialist confined spaces welding in completely inert ( no oxygen - full breathing apparatus needed ) environments, in gas refineries
 
I wonder if this pay issue isn't the same across many industries.

Back in the day, I remember, a school friend's parent owned their own artic and was an owner-driver. Earned good money for a good weeks work. Today, same job seems companies are loathe to let you have even 25K for it.

Welders- a skill artform is there ever was one. Minimum wage? You're having a laugh.

All the jobs where value is created are being fudged down in the name of corporate profits. It's a sad state of affairs.
 
Maybe they just aren’t paid enough ?

mate of mine was taking home $250K a year, a few years ago, doing specialist confined spaces welding in completely inert ( no oxygen - full breathing apparatus needed ) environments, in gas refineries

Relative works for a company that make specialist and high end products out of metal or alloys for the oil and gas industries. Factory operates 24/7 all year round save for a period of scheduled maintenance each summer when all the blokes go on holiday and external contractors come in and service all the machines involved. The value of just the raw materials stacked up in the pre-factory storage areas was into the millions apparently and ever component made is inspected by 2 or 3 people with various bits of kit. Absolutely nuts the number of man hours involved in just making a heat exchanger.
 

B R C

Member
Arable Farmer
I think a big issue is that not everyone is the same, some people will be twice as productive as others but if you pay the good ones more then the rubbish ones will soon want that as well, so everyone ends up on the same, so the good ones who are more capable will leave the industry to do something else.
That said I’ve just taken on a welder part time, he earns £400 a day on building sites in London, he is fully coded for structural steel. Some days he’s finished and back at mine for 2 and does 3 hours for me on top. I pay him £20/hr self employed, I think it will need to go up a bit. He is very capable and will do anything I ask.
 

sixrow

Member
Just found an old pay slip weeks wage from 20 years ago nearly to the day
 

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SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.0%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 35.1%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.0%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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