What's Uncool about a $100,000 Factory Job? The April unemployment rate for workers under 25 was 16.4 percent - with as many as half of recent college graduates unemployed or underemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That does not mean that no jobs are available. In fact, good jobs are available. But you may have to change your thinking about the type of work you take - factory work, for example. Factory jobs - once considered backbreaking and low paying - have become high tech and high salaried. Yet, factory owners say they can't find enough young, skilled workers for the jobs available. Joe Sedlak, a machinist who owns the Chesapeake Machine Company in Baltimore, tells CNNMoney, "There are jobs for the taking today. But kids don't want them." According to factory owners, young people get a bad picture of factory work from TV and the movies, where factories are shown as old, dark buildings where awful things happen. Bill Mach, president of Mach Mold, a manufacturer of plastics molds in Michigan, says Iron Man shows a more realistic picture of factory work. It's time to get educated about high-skilled factory jobs: • • •
An aspiring machinist - a popular factory job - can start training at 18 and then do a one- or two-year manufacturing apprenticeship. In five years, he or she could be making more than $50,000. In 10 years, that could double to $100,000. Not a bad salary for a 28-year-old.
"If you're really good at your work, you could remain employed for a very long time, because there are so few of us," Joe Sedlak says. The average annual pay at his company ranges between $70,000 and $80,000 with overtime. People like the work so much they stay. In 31 years, only three workers have retired from his factory. Adapted from CNNMoney, February 2012
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