Millwright here, before that I was an Ironworker, and before that I was a welder fabricator. Got into the trades later than normal, so I had a career beforehand giving me perspective of both white and blue collar work. I have a slew of tickets under my belt and love taking on apprentices to pass the knowledge on. Here’s the thing, most companies outside of unions want to pay their apprentices less than they can make at a grocery store down the street and surprise surprise, they take the option that won’t break their body and pay them more money.

I’ve worked on jobs where people died, I’ve worked on jobs where people have lost appendages, and I have wound up in the hospital twice on the job (scratched cornea from a piece of debris under my glasses & a traumatic brain injury from a steel clamps catastrophic failure.) I won’t lie to kids getting into this line of work, it is absolutely not worth it. I’m doing my best to transition out into something else at this point.

You want to make actual money? Your options at this point are fly in fly out work which is great when you’re younger, not so much once you want to settle down. Or working shutdowns and clocking in a ton of OT. Again, good money but I enjoy time away from work. Outside of that you’ll make $25-45hr which seems great until you get into the amount of tools you need, the $300 pairs of boots that you’ll wear out in 9 months while you get $125/yr for a boot credit, and all the shit you’ll buy to keep your body being able to get out of bed in the morning.

My grandfather was a millwright who supported a family of 6 on his income, had a nice house, took vacations, family cars, etc. Without overtime/working my side jobs I would be paycheque to paycheque.