• spudwart@spudwart.com
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    1 year ago

    The irony is now that the situation is totally inverted.

    My STEM degree has got me making a barely livable wage while the GEDs who went straight into a trade are making twice what I make.

    And the cruel reality is there is not a good way to determine which way this market will go unless you’re one of the 0.01%. And if you were it would make this a mute point.

    • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      What STEM path is barely getting by? Programmers and engineers are highly sought after employees rn.

      • QTpi@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I’m a Medical Laboratory Scientist (bachelor’s degree, nationally certified, and current on my certificate maintenance continuing education requirements) and it has taken 16 years for me to crack 100k/year. I started at 38k. There are not enough MLS out there to staff all the labs in the US. Labs are scrambling to figure out how to continue providing patient care in the face of crippling staffing shortages and yet pay is still shit.

        • littlecolt@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Absolutely insane. I’ve been workingfor my current company doing customer service for just over 5 years and I am making just shy of $50k/year. 16 years to claw your way to 100k after all the school you surely went through… Boggles my fucking mind. We all deserve better but this is just wrong.

      • spudwart@spudwart.com
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        1 year ago

        Well I my skill set is in programming, however to date since my graduation, I’ve only managed to get into an adjacent job which was IT.

        I’m gonna try and bring my skillset up ther by focusing on network administration, since for me it would appear that my programming skill isn’t really worth that much.

        IMO the hard truth is that the niche skills sell, not degrees.

      • Patches@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I would not say “right now”. This is the worst that the industry has ever been since maybe the dot com bubble.

        There are lay offs everyday, and wages are being openly suppressed. Someone with x yoe should expect 10% lower than 2 years ago.

    • Algaroth@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The meme should go “he’s probably in a union and has job security, health serurity and a living wage”. Fuck that guy. That’s what he gets for being an honest taxpayer.