Dec
23
Low status jobs becoming high status, from Nils Poertner
December 23, 2025 |

Fascinating to watch how former low status jobs, like cybersecurity, have become high status now. Same is true the other way around as well (eg (male) technician at the London tube system who makes a quarter of his wife who is in real estate - although that is changing now). Wondering what low type jobs / or ppl are on the fringes today will be in high demand in coming years.
Carder Dimitroff responds:
Try these:
Any of the crafts. Specifically, licensed electricians, plumbers, and HVAC techs. Many make more than engineers.
Public response teams. Specifically, firefighters, EMTs, and law enforcement. Many make more than lawyers, particularly when pensions are considered.
Career military. Specifically, for those with 20 years of service. Lifetime benefits are incredible (free college, unlimited grad schools, pensions w/colas, lifetime medical insurance, VA benefits, hiring preferences).
Pamela Van Giessen suggests:
Car mechanics
Henry Gifford writes:
My friend who fixed boilers said to his sophisticated, suit-and-tie, well educated in-laws “I’m not the smartest guy around. I’ve only read two or three books in my life. I don’t think I’m smart enough to come up with a sophisticated investment plan (nods all around the room at this point). So I just buy one piece of New York City real estate each year and hope for the best”. No more nodding at that point.
Guess what blue collar people who don’t have vices do with their money? They buy property. Who is better suited to own real estate? People who fix things and have friends who fix things, or lawyers?
And what nobody mentions is that some people are much better at those sorts of work than others. Simply finding someone to show up and try to do those things is hard. Someone who is good at one of those trades is in even higher demand.
Those fantastic benefits for former military people are not limited to the military – all federal employees get all those benefits after twenty years of work. If someone joins the military at 18, and gets out at 38, or gets out sooner and then works in the post office or etc. until they “get their twenty”, they get full salary with increases for life. Income that will survive any lawsuit, even the IRS can’t take it all. They maybe collect a total of three years of salary for every year worked.
Nils Poertner responds:
Certainly good to encourage young men (or women) to follow a path that interests them - and not just follow a path that is currently "high status". This "Yousef" guy who was my IT guy at Bankers Trust decades ago (low status in my eyes back then) became a cyberpunk in 2008…you get the idea. That said, it is a power game outside. young men need wives etc.
Henry Gifford adds:
I judge the level of a single woman’s interest in me by counting the seconds until she says “what do you do?”.
No woman has ever asked me if I like what I do, or am good at what I do – not important.
Many men have a choice between coming home miserable to a wife, or coming home happy to an empty house. Age old dilemma, no known fix, as all our DNA has evolved to enhance survival, which for a woman over the millennia has meant marrying the chief’s son, or someone else with high status.
Larry Williams recalls:
When I was dating all women ever asked me is your place or mine. Must have been doing something wrong.
Michael Brush is curious:
Do you have a cycle chart for that?
Larry Williams clarifies:
Yes but there are not enough examples to draw a conclusion.
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