Opportunity is Heating Up
It’s late July in hot, sunny Southern California. You should be poolside with a Miami Vice reading a book from your favorite crime novel series. However, hotels are expensive now, thanks to inflation. So, instead, you’re at home and your air conditioning goes out mid-week. After three phone calls, you finally find an HVAC company that can get out to your home the following day.
Where am I going with this? Well, demand for HVAC technicians, plumbers, and the like is high. The climate is heating up, and we are running our A/C more, and that means higher demand for repairs and servicing. There’s an opportunity here for many.
August is National Back to School Month. Kids all over the country are headed back to school whether it be pre-school, middle school, or college. However, we see a drop in college enrollment numbers. Spring 2022 saw a decline of 662,000 enrollments. US News reported that it was a 4.7% decrease from the fall of 2021. It gets bigger; during the pandemic, we saw a 9.4% decrease in undergraduate size. About 1.4 million students are opting out of higher education.
What’s happening? People are seeking out other opportunities as college tuition becomes more expensive. There is also growing evidence that the earnings potential with careers not requiring higher-level degrees is substantial. Finaid reports that college tuition has been experiencing an 8% inflation rate. Dollars-wise, tuition will double every nine years!
What’s the opportunity then that I was referring to earlier? Well, a quick Google search and I found that the average income of an HVAC technician is roughly $78,000 a year in the US. According to the Fed, the upper-middle class is in an income range between $75,301 and $127,300. If you like working with your hands and mechanical aspects, you are in demand and can make a solid living. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that demand for HVAC technicians will grow by 13% going into 2028, adding 43,600 new jobs to the market. Now is a great time to seize on this opportunity. The statistics are similar for other trades as well.
So, if you are turned off by the cost of college tuition, there are other great opportunities awaiting you. Find a solid trade school in your area, put in the work, and you’ll be on your way to building a great life without the high obligation of student debt looming over your head as many are faced with today.
When you land that job, talk with the team at KWB. We can help you through the ins and outs of the benefits you’ll likely have with your new employer. While we know little about HVAC and plumbing, we do know how to roll up our sleeves and put a plan together that will help you achieve your dreams and goals.
~ Quentin Bubb
Sources:
https://d2ouvy59p0dg6k.cloudfront.net/downloads/plastic_ingestion_web_spreads.pdf
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/hvac-technician-salary-SRCH_KO0,15.htm
https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/07/25/the-upper-middle-class-members-feel-the-pain-of-in
https://finaid.org/savings/tuition-inflation
https://cetweb.edu/as-california-heats-up-so-does-the-demand-for-hvac-technicians