Pros and Cons of Becoming an Electrician in Ontario

Cons:

• hard to find an apprenticeship
• odd hours, overtime, nights, weekends and on-call shifts
• cuts, falls, injuries or shocks are possible
• strenuous positions, kneeling, crawling, heavy lifting, working in dirty, tight, dusty, noisy, etc. spaces
• wet, hot, cold outdoor work environment
• working at heights
• fierce competition. Labour supply is greater than demand. The industry has become overcrowded as more and more of us fight for the same piece of pie, driving the rates down
• if self-employed, HUGE overhead due mostly to over-regulation and red tape (read legalized robbery by high salaried bureaucrats/parasites)
• legal risks. No one could follow all rules and regulations. It is impossible. You are always on the hook. Bureaucratic criminals have made it like this on purpose. So that they can always get you if they want more of your money for themselves!

Pros:

• get an average pay faster and without bachelor degree
• higher career growth prospects as baby-boomers get retired
• if self-employed, set your own schedule
• don't wear a suit
• less formal workplace
• very handy skill allows you to work in virtually any firm or industry
• the work keeps you physically fit while you're young
• many of us really enjoy it and love what we do
• most renovators and handymen are envious of us (without any reason)
• if you are smart and avid you can learn some specific skills like robotics and become a greatest hit in the industry and sometimes make more than an engineer
• it can be a nice living if you have employees, but you are going to work hard and long hours for it
• the best, experienced, entrepreneurial, and most capable of us get $80 to $150 per hour

WHAT HAVE I MISSED? TELL ME. I WILL ADD MORE ....

Don't get excited by $50 or $90 per hour most customers will pay you. There are HUGE expenses if you are your own boss. Vehicle, gas, maintenance and insurance, tools, shop, employees, three!!! license fees, inspection fees, materials, marketing, bookkeeping and accounting, liability insurance and WSIB payments, etc. Business and then personal income tax on top!

You can also read & comment on:

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Doing free estimates is another enormous waste item. And most of us, who are self-employed, do NOT work 40 or 50 hours a week at that rate. Half of the time or a bit more.

Your $50 or $90 rate equals just $20 to $45 per hour of the actual cash in your pocket to spend on your personal or family needs if you work for yourself.

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The single biggest problem is over-regulation. The government and other bodies are doing their best to squeeze you dry. The Ontario College of Trades and Electrical Safety Authority criminal parasites are the first in line to suck your time, energy, and hard earned money out of you.

They don't kneel, don't crawl, don't work full time in dirty, tight, dusty, and noisy spaces. They do not need to do midnight shifts, nor work outdoor 8 hours straight when it's minus 15. Instead they invented, lobbied, pushed for and succeeded in passing the law allowing them to take enough money from you to pay much more money to themselves while laughing at you!

If morally degraded, one can not find a better career than working in the government or similar entities. The Ontario College of Trades and Electrical Safety Authority are the perfect examples of such employment. The bureaucrats have successfully lobbied the government. And it has approved an amazingly large package of direct and indirect payments, salaries, wages, allowances, benefits, contributions, coverages, and reimbursements for these parasites. You also pay for their comprehensive health and dental plans, and pensions. http://stopesa.blogspot.com/2015/04/poor-electricians-forced-to-pay-rich-esa-employees.html

Simply put, you are a cow, they are the farmer. They have a mandate to milk you. It is their job. Their children deserve your money. Your own kids don't. They milk you instead of working side by side with you. They are smarter and better than you. Farmers and cows. Farmers and cows!

These ugly "be a cow or a farmer", "be a victim or a criminal", "be robbed to the bone to keep feeding your family" options push even good people do bad things. Unable to fight the almighty provincial bureaucracy most of us, if not all, are forced to skip inspections, work for cash, endanger the public, and become offenders to survive.

The institutionalized abuse of power goes much deeper and farther than just that. It rots the souls of both criminals and victims. It affects all Ontarians. Hundreds of thousands of federal bureaucrats, provincial parasites, municipal and local criminals at all levels of government badly hurt you, every citizen, and Canada as a whole!

The above will sooner or later catch up with every single unsuspected victim, a self-employed electrician to be. And it is better to be aware of the nasty unavoidable stuff.

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If you are highly entrepreneurial, really good with both your hands and head do renovation and then grow to become a GC building new homes. That's where the money is! General contractors and developers are at the top of the food chain. They are the masters in the field, the emperors of all trades!

If I could, I would start over as an HVAC mechanic. On top of their skills they learn some of electricity and plumbing. And if you have a couple of best friends or brothers, the three of you should become an HVAC mechanic, an electrician and a plumber. That's how all of you TOGETHER could quickly become highly paid and very successful.

But sometimes the success is much faster and easier than that, simply if you are lucky.

I met a guy by the elevator. We spoke for 6 minutes or so while waiting for and riding down to the lobby. As a new immigrant from Serbia with poor English he found his first job doing window and door caulking for the newly built homes. After learning the skill in two months, three of them, all friends, began working for themselves. And another few months later each of them got his own crew while still sticking together as one company. The guy from the elevator also told me that he was buying his first house 18 months after arrival in Canada. It took me, a licensed electrician, around 11 years to buy my first! See the difference?

As an electrician I worked in a mansion of a Filipino woman who became a millionaire starting as a mortgage clerk, then becoming a processing agent after two-week long courses. And then, in a few years the four colleagues got together and became a mortgage broker. More or less the same success scenario without higher education, special skills, extensive knowledge, or five year apprenticeship!

Being an electrician is certainly NOT the best career or occupation. If you have a brain choose something else. Financial, health, legal, IT and some other fields will always be in demand. (Take the financial field. People bring you their own money voluntarily. What could be better than that?). They are recession proof too. And sometimes you do not need a bachelor degree just to get in. So use your brain, not your back if you can.

Yet again, electrical or any other path could become a road to success if you are smart, hardworking, honest, entrepreneurial and if a good fortune is in the cards for you, like for that caulking guy or the mortgage lady.

Good luck!

PS. I have a dream to bring The Ontario College of Trades and Electrical Safety Authority criminal parasites to justice. Only then being an electrician could become really appealing and attractive career in Ontario!

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You can also comment on these topics:

Has the ESA abused you?
Or charged money for nothing?

Cost to fix a short circuit in Ontario

Do you do WASTEFUL free estimates?

Customer did not pay me. What do I do now?

Electrical contractor's rates, earnings, electrician wages