Factory jobs do pay living wages. I worked at a Fortune 500 factory in rural AL and the entry level jobs (running the street sweeper inside the factory) started at $28/hr. Operators that took OT would make over $100k/yr. The operators that worked there 20+ years made more money than I did as an engineer.
I’ve worked in factories in California, Ohio, Alabama, and my peers have worked all over (different companies). Factory jobs pay very decent and often have a hard time finding employees.
Thanks for the injection of reason. I work as an engineer in a manufacturing plant. We’re short-staffed with a high turnover. However that’s because of the hours, not the pay. This thread is filled with people who think factory workers are manual-labor oppressed people with no upward mobility. It’s borderline classist. Factory jobs aren’t inherently bad or unhealthy.
I think most people still visualize these roles as we see them on TV where its a person in all white scrubs screwing in 4 things before passing it down the line for 12 hours per day.
The factories that can actually be profitable in North America need massive automation in order to function and most of the jobs are far more complex than we think. CNC operators, forklift operators, etc.
