Young tradies have opened up about the dark reality of their industry, admitting that it involves long hours and brutal work.
A number of tradies were stopped on the streets of the Gold Coast by jobs app Getahead and asked how much they earn and what their average day looks like.
A 17-year-old concrete worker revealed he earned “$30 an hour.”
He said he’s only been working for a year, and “some parts are easy and some parts are hard.”
The young tradie said he sometimes starts work at 5 a.m. and works until about 4 p.m.
A young electrician who works in the mines said she works twelve and a half hours a day on a seven-days-on, seven-days off schedule.
The young woman revealed that she earns $165,000 a year.
She said working in mining is “a bit like golden handcuffs in a way, like once you’re attracted to that money.”
The young tradie said he sometimes starts work at 5 a.m. and works until about 4 p.m.
She admitted that working in the mines as a 17-year-old woman was initially tough.
The woman said she was the only woman when she started, but there are more women working in the mines now.
“You learn a lot, especially being so young and vulnerable,” she said.
Another woman explained what it’s like to work in a male-dominated industry.
The first-year apprentice electrician said the biggest challenge in her work is to ‘make myself big enough to be heard’.
She said depending on overtime, she works about 10 hours a day and earns about $2,000 a week.
“Obviously there’s not too much responsibility placed on me at this point since I’m a freshman,” she said.
She admitted that the workload will increase once school starts.
An apprentice carpenter working in his first year said he only earns about $600 a week, which is lower than the Australian minimum wage of $915.90 a week.
The young electrician admitted that it was initially tough working in the mines as a 17-year-old woman, but there are now more women
‘It’s not the best. Living alone and all, it’s hard to live off what I make, but I have to deal with what I have,” he said.
‘My dad got me a job out of school and then I thought I wanted to be a chippy, so that’s what I did.’
A third-year apprentice carpenter said he had to spend $4,000 buying tools and earned $900 a week, spending 12 hours a day under the scorching Australian sun.
Even under these conditions, the job is easier than he expected, he added.