Trades for Hard Times

Just like in the Great Depression if you can fix things like plumbing, electrical, carpentry, often you can find piecemeal work even in a severe recession or even a depression. The first jobs to go are all usually white collar and over the counter sales positions as more and more stores downsize or close.

But also like the Great Depression if you can fix things like fawcetts, toilets, broken fences and other things around homes, ranches, companies etc. you can find work as a maintenance man or handyman, especially out in the country. You might not be able to make as much as you want but at least you will be able to put food on the table in these difficult times we presently live in.

When I went to France recently people there seemed to be taking the severe recession in stride and not panicking like people in the U.S. There is a good reason for this. First of all in France there is socialized medicine so you will get health care even if unemployed and there is a way to survive if there are no jobs. However, if you live in the United States this isn't true. If you are unemployed in the U.S. and your unemployment compensation runs out after 1 or 2 years there might not be anywhere else to turn. So it is good to be thinking about how to start your own handyman business or just hiring yourself out to homeowners or business owners as an independent contractor or fix it person. Many of this work is for cash as often people who hire you prefer this as well. I'm not recommending this as an option but rather I'm just being realistic. Hard times call for surviving any way you can or often you don't survive at all.

I was watching a special on the CCC (Civilian Conservation Core) of the 1930s. One man was sharing what it was like to be a young poor man who was asked to leave home by his father when he was 18. When I grew up in the 1960s and turned 18 in 1966 many of my friends' fathers told them to leave. Often their only choice when this happened was to join the military if they wanted to eat and have clothes and a roof over their heads. Today this is often true again unfortunately.

This one man in the CCC PBS special on American Experience said that he rode the rails on boxcars on freight trains and begged for work but no one hired him even though often people would give him food so he didn't die. So after one or two years of this when the CCC started in the early 1930s he joined that and had food to eat, clothes to wear and a safe place to sleep and work. So when World War II started he joined the Army and he was already trained to live with diverse people from all over the country. Many of the boys from 18 to 25 could not read when they joined the CCC but were trained to read and given a trade as well when they joined it if they were willing to train for it. I think something like this is needed again to give direction to young people without jobs and to give them a trade. At its peak 2 to 3 million young men were a part of the CCC during the 1930s in every state in the union.