I was told I had to go to university. In the 1990s it was what my parents dreamed of. But now? There’s a better path through life for people who don’t go to university. Not just better than the path was before, but also possibly better than going to university.
Being a tradie is a terrific option for a capable young person. Electricians in particular are in hot demand.
The latest occupations shortage list is out and the top five employing occupations in shortage are aged or disabled carers, primary school teachers, secondary school teachers, truck drivers and electricians.
Let’s focus on electricians.
It is a wonderful time to be a sparky. An electrical apprenticeship can be a bit tough, but you can start young, even as young as 15 if you’re in school as well. The pay is modest — $15 an hour for a young, first-year apprentice who didn’t finish Year 12 — but there are other inducements.
The government gives out all sorts of lollies: interest-free loans to buy tools, a supplement for young people who have to live out of home, and regular government payments. Six months into the gig, the government gives eligible apprentice electricians a $1,750 “Australian Apprentice Training Support Payment” plus a $2,000 “New Energy Apprentice Support Payment”. They can get the payments every six months or so until they are done.
Apprentices are, traditionally, pimply young fellas (the electrician trade is one of the most gender-skewed professions in Australia — over 99% male). But grown-ups are starting to flock to the job.
Adult apprentices make more than young ones — $26 an hour. Once qualified, the most junior electrician working normal hours makes $31 an hour under the award. Pay rates rise to up to $115 an hour for a highly qualified sparky doing certain types of shift work on a public holiday.
The real rewards for tradies come when you try to set up your own small business.
Our government is set up to promote and reward small business, and electricians are in demand. The confluence of those facts means that the electrical business is a great one to be in.
Want a big ute? Commercial vehicles have no luxury tax on them. Want to write off that ute on your income tax? The government provides instant asset write-offs. There was $641.4 million in small business support in the last budget, and that was an austere non-election budget. The next one will be full of goodies.
But government support need not be the end of the upside for an electrical business, not if an American trend comes to Australia. In the states, tradie businesses are being bought up by eager buyers, generating massive windfalls for tradies.
Big capital is reaching beyond big business to buy up small and medium businesses, conglomerating them into regional and national brands. That is creating huge paydays for the men (and it is mostly men) who own these companies.
“You can build a business that’s going to be worth $10-30 million and have a ready list of buyers to sell it to,” a private equity investor told The Wall Street Journal in a recent article about how plumbers are America’s new millionaire class.
“Private equity investors have purchased nearly 800 HVAC, plumbing and electrical companies since 2022, according to data from PitchBook,” says the article. No such data exists for Australia, but any trend is likely to reach our shores after it takes root in the US.
In the meantime, electricians can make big bucks. The shortage of workers is present in every state, and it is likely to remain a shortage for some time, as electricians can work only after they complete a four-year apprenticeship.
Suggesting to your kids that they become electricians could pay off for a very long time. The future is going to be more and more electrical. And while AI is coming for jobs that deal in abstractions (like writers) robots are not yet so clever. Jobs that involve problem-solving in non-routine physical spaces are going to be safe from automation for a long time.
