Training

PeterA

Well-known member
I am very interested to know what is happening with training and how u get new entrants into the industry. In the Uk we seem to have stopped training youngsters about 20 years ago - so have an ageing workforce.
Peter
 
Re: Training

I'm here in Canada, in our prepress department of 15 people everyone is over the age of 40. We used to get co-op students in, but haven't had any for a couple of years now. I presume they have more interesting and lucrative options than getting into a declining industry. Printing and pre-press used to be a well-paid craft, but now with automation, pdfs, oversaturation of the market with cylinders, low profit margins, the move to digital, wages are starting to decline, and it seems pretty gloomy. Nobody in here would recommend to their kids to get into this.
 
Re: Training

I'm in Memphis, Tennessee in the U.S., and would have to agree wholeheartedly. I was the youngest person in the color separation house I started at after graduating college, went from about $9/hr to $23/hr while getting my journeyman. After they closed (after almost 80 years in business), I went to work for a local printer. Had to take a $5/hr cut on pay to $18/hr just to get a job in 2002 after being out of work 3 months. Needless to say, I haven't made it back to $23/hr and don't expect to. So I passed my prime before I even turned 30. This is why I'm in the process of moving to another career, while staying in this one only until I get the other up and running and making money to sustain myself and my wife. When you add the fact that the U.S. dollar has decreased in value 40% since 2000, you can see that I'm making about at or less than I did soon after getting into this business.

Don
 
Re: Training

Also in Canada. Issues for youth as I see them are:

1. Copious amount of material to learn or re-learn. Too many flavors of software etc.
Trench workers have to make the major decisions about live jobs.
2. Prepress is evolving so fast that few are properly keeping up with it. Most managers are now too old to be in touch with the reality of print today and have not kept up-to-date and do not know it; in fact, will vehemently deny this fact. Companies have no clue thinking the work will just be produced without investment for the future.
3. Pay for semi-skilled (those coming out of school) is low and has little future for advancement. Only those that will study away from work will move up and the number of positions are fewer by the technological upgrade.
4. High School grads can't spell, make an orderly list of instructions, do simple arithmetic, plan and re-schedule at a moment's notice, take continuous interruption nor communicate well. A university degree is now mandatory to guarantee the shop basic skills such as these and then the company has to work them up from there.
6. Youth in overseas countries do have the work ethic and will become the best resource pool for domestic jobs but how long with they work for 25 grand without a raise?
7. Highly skilled people can nearly name their price and this will become more of an issue once more of the old retire. The demand will become massive in the next five years. What is needed is a change in corporate thinking but it will only happen once the pay for those few skilled workers that are left gets too high in their corporate minds. No amount of government intervention will work although I am shocked at the poor education a high school graduate has these days and that can be fixed by government but it will take a generation or two.

John
 
Re: Training

I have a set of CDs from a few years back that were training courses on different prepress applications, and they where pretty good. I just looked up their web site that was on the back, and although the name has changed it seems as if they have the same courses available. I can't say if they are any good or not, but it might be worth looking into. The web site is: http://itsolut.com/
 
Re: Training

John,

When schools in America quit teacing students about politically correct issues (that most parents don't want their kids being taught about/indoctrinated with anyways), and start teaching the basics that our parents actually learned, then we can have smarter kids. Don't expect much, and they will meet the low expectation. Too much is about what someone feels these days.

Teacher: "Johnny, what does 2+2 equal?"
Johnny: "Five"
Teacher: "That's right Johnny! If it makes you feel good that it equals five, it equals five. There are no right or wrong answers."

You think I'm kidding, but this is about the way it goes. Competition is a bad word these days. What you feel is more important than whether you are right. Critical thinking is not in this generation. They have been indoctrinated to NOT think and to NOT ask questions and to NOT question authority. Pretty well sitting ducks for a Hitler-type to come along. America's children are being dumbed dow PURPOSELY, and it's high time parents start grasping what is going on. Unlike the Bible which tells us to test all things and hold to that which is good, the humanist doesn't want people to think critically, because they want to turn America away from God and truth (and mostly have).

Look into the Humanist Manifesto (parts I, II, and III), and you'll see what plans they had (and how far they've come in doing what they set out to do).

I know many of you will protest that I am bringing God into this, where He doesn't belong. I say He does belong, just as Truth has a place. Throw out God, throw out Truth, then what are you left with? What we have now. You can't expect to tell kids they come from animals, that their life has no meaning, that their is no such thing as right or wrong, and expect them to care about values whatsoever. Treat them as animals, tell them they are just animals, and you get the rise in school shootings we have had. There is a connection, whether the majority wants to keep its head in the sand and pretend its not going on or not. If I get kicked off these forums for saying this, that's OK too. The truth will still remain the truth whether someone stands up for it or not.

Don
 
Re: Training

I really don't know what are you complaining about??
Don't you know that we are entering conceptual age?
We are all suppose to wear wrapped sheets around us, sing and dance, enjoy the life while the rest of the world is working for us.

This is called "lights out production" and "automation" or push the button and bunch of oversea workers start working on your job.

I am training my writing skills and soon getting into calligraphy.
I love music and know how to play couple of instruments.

Seriously, this is how I see what the big ones are predicting, I hope they are right since I like that prediction, as long as it comes through and I am not hungry on the street.
 
Re: Training

I believe that is all about opportunities and individuals.
Here in Australia the mining and building industries are booming.
A young person can choose a better way to earn money just training in one of these industries.
I don't believe that the printing industry is a declining one, it is just changing.
It is not paid the way it used to be paid but in my opinion, when the old dinosaurs like us will slowly disappear, there will be some changes.
It is indeed more IT than color sep now but you still need the experience on the light table to make things work.
Cheers
 
Re: Training

"When you add the fact that the U.S. dollar has decreased in value 40% since 2000"

Well, if I had a million U.S. dollars in 2000 vs. now, I could buy today with a million what I could buy in 2000 for $600,000.

Could also put it another way and say that the U.S. dollar has decreased in value (purchasing power) 96% since 1960. No gold standard. Looking at two graphs, one of money supply, and the other of purchasing power. They look like an almost exact inverse. The money supply went from less than one trillion to 10 trillion. The dollar went from about $0.80 purchasing power to less than half of one cent purchasing power (yes it had already lost $0.20 purchasing power by 1960, and almost the rest since 1960).

In other words, it's not just your imagination that money's getting tighter. That you can't buy today what you used to could if you're in the U.S.

In 2000, U.S. investments to foreign countries was at about 8%. Now it's over 75%. Is it a surprise? No. Who wants to hold investment that's decreasing in value as quickly as the U.S. dollar has?

Meanwhile, China's equivalent to the U.S. dollar grew 80% last year alone. Guess where I'm thinking about investing?

Don
 
Re: Training

Whitaker,
Wow - I can't believe you still have the CDs. I work for the company you mentioned, and we stopped making the CDs in 2000. We took all training online at that time.

The online training courses include pre-and post-tests, allowing a person to test out of what they already know, so we've come a long way since then, but I'm glad to hear the CDs are still around out there.
Debbie Goodman
 
Re: Training

Is there anybody who knows how to print in the uk who still has the enthusiasm to show young people how to print ? In my experience the answer to that is no. My dad taught me and he did 7 year`s at collage to learn print, i did a 2 year nvq. What did I learn from my NVQ? How to index pages. The wage for a printer in the last 10 years has dropped big time. £500 a week was minimum 4 col 74 money with good printers on maby 700- 800 now most places pay 325-375 and they don't care how good a printer you are as long as its "good enough" to sell, add that to inflation and the average cost of a house and 375 isn't a lot for the hassle. Most of the printer i have worked with now fit Kitchens, install windows or paint and decorate, the uk industry has been ignorant to the fact that experienced printers demand good money and if they cant get it printing they do it another way.
 
Re: Training

When I graduated from University in 1971 we used to joke about how the other kids who went to tradeschool instead (carpentry, plumbing, electrical) got all the well paying jobs while we were getting our degrees. Almost 40 years later, I can't even get a carpenter to build a bookcase - they can't be bothered - too many jobs available and not enough trades people to fill the need.

One issue that educational institutions have difficulty with, especially in regards to graphic arts education, is how does one create a curriculum to educate/prepare people for jobs that may longer be in existence once they graduate? Or for jobs that may have required well paid skills that originally attracted the student to that career path that, once they graduate, have become either low-value/paid positions or eliminated by an automated system.


best, gordo
 
Re: Training

Just curious, but is there still such a thing as Digital "craft" in how the IT and the automation can be assembled?

Seems to me like a graduating student today can still make a great living by bridging the light-table skills with the modern know-how. The old timers bring necessary context to this new digital arena and are by no means obsolete unless they choose it.

Curious on people's thoughts about demographics, the craft, the pride (which is still there but different) and the viability of print in this automated world...
AL
 
Re: Training

1. Institutions must tell their graduates the truth (they don't). Yes, 100% placement rate but at a wage that is barely a starting wage and that the chance for improvement is next to nil and that positions will be available for only those that do massive amounts of homework or if they're lucky, to get two hours a night at work with a management that allows surfing, studying, trial and error trouble shooting etc.

2. The area of pre-press is a moving target, nearly every job presents different and new issues that must be addressed, cracked open and solved. That is why the education should be hands on with live samples of problems. Most of these will be pdf complexity and transparency issues. There will exist a four hour solution and a two minute solution. You may look like a hero if you solve it in four hours when nobody else can but then become a perceived fool when somebody on night shift who has done all the study, can fix the job in two minutes.

3. Actual trade operators must do the teaching, never supervisors, managers or the retired who have been removed from the trench for anything more than a year, IMO.

John
 
Re: Training

The pressman here also works as a painter on the side. If it was steady pay like printing, he wouldn't be a pressman any longer.

Don
 
Re: Training

> {quote:title=gordo wrote:}{quote}
> When I graduated from University in 1971 we used to joke about how the other kids who went to tradeschool instead (carpentry, plumbing, electrical) got all the well paying jobs while we were getting our degrees. Almost 40 years later, I can't even get a carpenter to build a bookcase - they can't be bothered - too many jobs available and not enough trades people to fill the need.
>

this is a discussion i have been having with some folks lately...i tell people that i really hope that my son (he is just a small boy now) gets interested in a trade such as carpentry or plumbing or being an electrician, and shows a desire to go to trade school. you can make a terrific living with those skills. i relate a story from when i was a high school kid back in the 80s and being told by my guidance counselor that without a college degree you cant make it in the world and blah blah blah. every now and again i hear some windbag saying stuff like that, it really pisses me off. there are plenty of trades where you can be very successful, and while of course you need education to learn these skills, you dont need to go get a masters degree. and i hear people saying that you can't make it in this trade unless you have a degree, and i disagree with that, too. if you have a desire to learn and a good work ethic and you listen, you can still do well for yourself in prepress.

just my opinion, mind you.

cr
 
Re: Training

I couldn't agree more Chris. In my 20 years I have not seen my pay go down (it kinda stagnated for a while there while I was the PP manager). I'm making my mark and plan on making a go for a management position in the future here in my new job.

I used to have the same arguments about higher education that you've had. One acquaintance suggested I would end up driving a cable TV truck (he's now selling ball bearings which has absolutely nothing to do with his degree). and another who liked to make the same jokes at my expense used to work for me as a Graphic artist (I gave him his first real job once out of college).

Attitude, a good work ethic mixed with a little intelligence and the desire to always learn more can get you to a good place in life. Its amazing to me as I look around in this trade how rare those qualities actually are.

I plan on retiring from this trade, the naysayers not with standing theres always going to be the need for quality people in any business no matter how much automation you try and achieve.

My 2¢
 

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