They are rising all across the country because there is a big shortage, and it's only going to get worse. Boomers are retiring faster than they are being replaced.

Optimum employment? When someone wants to get a project built in Portland Oregon the wait time this past year was about 3 months until you were lucky enough to land a contractor. Contractors can't find enough skilled help so everything takes longer.

> Contractors can't find enough skilled help so everything takes longer.

No, contractors can't find enough CHEAP skilled help.

If there is an actual shortage, wages will rise sufficiently to pull people into the field or cause people to move around to fill the holes.

The fact that these slots are not being filled says that they aren't paying enough NOT that there is a shortage.

The BLS data that I've looked at between 2010 (https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/home.htm) and 2016 (https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/home.htm) seems to show a median pay rise of roughly 10% over that time period. (I only sampled a few trades -- carpentry, electrician, and plumbing -- to get that figure.)

This is honestly less of a wage increase than, say, computer programming, over that time period (see BLS data, 2010 https://web.archive.org/web/20120401201347/https://www.bls.g... vs 2016 https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...).

But it is certainly better than, say, the modest 9% average increase in wages for cashiers and retail workers (2010 -- https://web.archive.org/web/20120409173908/http://www.bls.go... vs 2016 -- https://www.bls.gov/ooh/sales/home.htm).

(Pity the poor modeling occupation, pay has actually decreased 33% during this time period).

Generally speaking, I still see a fair bit of "college premium" in the BLS data -- I would think it would be incorrect to interpret the headline advice overly broadly. However, I do think it's true that not all college degrees are equal, and that some vocational degrees might work out better as ROI goes.

"Trade school degrees" is also quite a broad term. For some reason, the construction trades are emphasized on HN when this topic comes up, but it's worth pointing out that "trade school degrees" also include occupations like some medical careers (nursing, dental hygiene, technicians), police and fire services, paralegals, and plenty of other career paths with fairly bright prospects as of now. The BLS shows growth rate in plumbing to be faster than average, but the same goes for RNs and paralegals.