Why Old-Timey Jobs Are Hot Again

Jun 6, 2017, 2:17 PM

i'm betting the "college-educated employees" discussed herein don't have science/engineering degrees.... but I like the idea of a bartender with a history degree, barber with a polysci ..... good conversation, no?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-old-timey-jobs-are-hot-again-1496754001

Gentrification isn’t just taking place in working-class neighborhoods. It’s happening to jobs, too.

Walk around parts of Brooklyn, Portland or Pittsburgh, and you’ll find stylish cocktail bars, barbers and the occasional butcher shop staffed by young, college-educated employees. For an affluent segment of today’s urban economy, these jobs have been revalued from low-status semi-manual labor to glamorous occupations, says sociologist Richard Ocejo.

In his new book “Masters of Craft: Old Jobs in the New Urban Economy,” Mr. Ocejo examines the forces driving a resurgence of occupations such as butcher and bartender among young middle-class urbanites. A similar dynamic is at work with a handful of other jobs, including craft brewer, bookbinder, furniture maker and fishmonger.

The Labor Department projects that between 2014 and 2024 the number of bartenders and barbers in the U.S. will grow 10%, while butchers will see a 5% increase, compared with a 7% job growth for all occupations over the same period. Median pay for these jobs was less than $30,000 a year in 2016.

Millennials are drawn to these occupations, in part, as a reaction to “the ephemerality of the digital age,” says Mr. Ocejo, a sociology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the City University of New York Graduate Center.

Distinct from many of today’s most vaunted jobs in fields like information technology and financial services, these trades “are based in using your hands, with actual tools and materials, to provide a tangible concrete product,” he says.

To attract young people with college degrees and other options in the labor market, jobs usually have an element of performance to them, Mr. Ocejo says. In most of the careers he studied for “Masters of Craft,” workers interact closely with customers, often in a public setting where their skill and knowledge can be admired. That’s why some manual positions like electrician and plumber are unlikely to experience the same “revalorization,” he says.

Unlike real-estate gentrification, where the arrival of more affluent people displaces lower-income residents in a neighborhood, hipsters generally aren’t displacing workers at more conventional businesses in the same industry, Mr. Ocejo says.

A trendy whole-animal butcher isn’t pushing out the local butcher shop, he says, since it likely “closed a long time ago when the Italians moved out.” And it isn’t hurting the halal butchers in the neighborhood either, since those shops serve a different clientele.

“They’ve created a niche that didn’t exist before, and they’re operating along parallel but very, very separate paths” with pre-existing businesses, Mr. Ocejo says.

But with aesthetics playing such a key role in the craft-business ideal—from bartenders with suspenders and handlebar mustaches to tattooed butchers carving an unusual cut of meat—Mr. Ocejo says the jobs tend to attract people from similar cultural backgrounds, creating a barrier for others.

“It’s very difficult if you are from a working-class background or a minority to get one of these jobs, which would give you higher wages, networking opportunities and more interesting work,” he says. “That’s a challenge for these companies: to become more inclusive and not just hire people who look like them or are part of their social network.”

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Why Old-Timey Jobs Are Hot Again

You dont need an ole-timey job to talk political byoolshite

I've got a BS Chemistry

You, good Sir, should become an apothecary.***

I've oft considered becoming a huckster or a boniface.

Lemme know when you need a scamp.***

so the hipsters are realizing this is what they have been

I see a lot of potential knaves in Walmart.***

I do have a friend that graduated with me at Clemson who is

The high-end barber shops can bring in some good jack.***

You have to be an adept scrivener to manage one though.***

lmao***

also high volume shops can be $$$

that would be capitalism in a nutshell - lots of customers

Black hair is where the $'s at.***

Wow, way to be racist

Is he going to be in Greenville? If so, can you

He will be in Greenville, but he's probably 8-12 months from

I won't have as much, but I'll probably

i am in the market for a Squire***

Not gonna lie.......

If you were closer to Louisville, you could become a

tangent response.

My buddy here that trades by mail and has gotten some really

Re: tangent response.

thanks brah but I'm on the other side of the lake....

YET.

You seen their distribution recently?

I need them to distribute in Rock Hill.

No way they come to SC.

WHY DOES TAG NO WORK FOR ME EVUR?

Do you have AMAA posting warranty?

Or Lethal Remedy here in RH.***

whoar?

Jokes on all of you been an alchemist for 20 years

Much like Obed quitting the rat race to become a wainwright,

Rufus?***

How long before AB-InBev starts buying these up too?***

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