The hit film about overworked nurses that's causing alarm across Europe

Much of the west is getting older and getting sicker. How unsurprising.

What even is the solution? Expand the already massive healthcare sector further? Where does the money for that come from?

I have thought that we should make entering the medical professions much easier. In order to become a nurse, you usually need a 4 year degree. This has two issues:

1. This is way to much time in the classroom. Much of that coursework simply isn't necessary.

2. You have people that would be good nurses piking other programs because they can't get passing marks in classes that are irrelevant to day to day nursing.

Binding what are essentially professional programs to the academy is a mistake. Don't get me wrong, I love the academy. But we need nurses.

At least in the US, nursing does not require a 4 year degree. You can become an RN with an associates degree. A 2 year nursing degree has one of the highest returns on investment of any training program (especially if you go to community college). Ivy Tech CC in Indiana and WGU both have nursing programs with great returns. Keep in mind, nursing is not an easy path and has a super high burnout rate. It's a tough and demanding job.

Other professions with a great return on training are HVAC, electrician, plumber, robotics/logic systems (CAM, conveyors, etc.). These are especially high paying if you focus on commercial and industrial.

A lot of people are surprised to learn the the average wage for both plumbers and electricians is ~30 bucks an hour, then that’s in exchange for body breaking work. A small subset earn more, but it’s not the norm.

Union electricians and plumbers make good money, and the non-union shops that do commercial work have to pay close to union wages plus some fringes to get enough manpower. I pay $100/hr for a union journeyworker electrician in a metro area of ~3 million, $106 for a foreman, and $112 for a general foreman. Both of those include fringes, the split is about 55/45 or so. The contracts are for three-year terms with raises every year.

Residential construction is a whole different ballgame that I’m unfamiliar with, but I’d imagine that’s where the average gets dragged down.

> I pay $100/hr for a union journeyworker electrician in a metro area of ~3 million, $106 for a foreman, and $112 for a general foreman.

Genuine question: Why?

I picked the Cincinnati MSA, as an example, as it’s both bigger than yours and is likely to have unionized work.

BLS says the 90th quartile is still only ~90k which while certainly not bad, is only the top 10%.

> Genuine question: Why?

Because.. that’s what the union charges my employer per hour for an electrician? I don’t have a choice lol

Cincinnati is a rust belt city with depressed wages (no offense to anyone that lives there, but it’s the truth), my market is higher income (Minneapolis/St Paul) where a journeyworker makes $57/hr on the check instead of $38/hr like in Ohio, which is 1.5x (!!) higher.

Well sure, my questions is why is the Union charging over double what seems to be 90th quartile for electricians in small to mid sized MSAs and only a bit more than the 90th quartile on high COL cities.

I suspect the electrician they send over isn’t just pocketing $100/h on wages.

> Well sure, my questions is why is the Union charging over double what seems to be 90th quartile for electricians in small to mid sized MSAs and only a bit more than the 90th quartile on high COL cities.

The union is charging that because *that is what’s in the contract that was signed by the union and the local union contractors after negotiation. Electricians get paid a lot where I live because it’s a wealthy growing area that people want to live in, and not a dying rust belt city.

> I suspect the electrician they send over isn’t just pocketing $100/h on wages.

Did you read the post I wrote initially?

I give the breakdown of how much of the money I pay to the union goes to the worker on his paycheck (55%) with the rest going to insurance, taxes, union dues, pension, etc (fringe benefits, which are 45%)

> Did you read the post I wrote initially? I give the breakdown of how much of the money I pay to the union goes to the worker on his paycheck (55%) with the rest going to insurance, taxes, union dues, pension, etc (fringe benefits, which are 45%)

I misread that intitially.

At the end of the day, anytime this topic comes up, there’s an oddly large discrepancy between the anecdotes and the BLS data.

Even half of that $100 puts these electricians in the 90th quartile for hourly wages in that MSA. So they’re either sending there most expensive guys or I’m misreading misinterpreting the BLS data.