25 is the starting wage. Maybe apprenticeship starts lower. You go to a jobsite in auckland and you can find people doing the trade for 20+ years making under $30 an hour. Ultimately I think the trades are a good job but due to the people and culture of them they are a bad place to work.

The stats show degrees far out earning those without.

Why I think trades are bad is because of the people in them. The older tradies seem to be genuinely horrible people. I've only done 3 years in construction but every single job was filled with experienced people taking advantage of those stupid enough to try get into it. I was new to the trade and getting $19 while being rented out to the comapmy we were subbing for as experienced and $65 an hour. The senior guy spent his whole day gambling while the team who was all being paid $19-23 did all the work. The senior was racist and aggressive and would constantly make decisions that would fuck over the work other tradies were doing in site. For example he would borrow people's equipment instead of provide his own. He would get the forklift to dump our materials in front of other people's materials so it was harder for then to do their work. He would climb on other people's pipes and cable racks and sometimes this would break then.

A few other jobs all had similar dynamics. My dad who's been in construction his whole life compley agreed and has 100s of stories worse than mine. He says the pay isn't worth destroying your body.

Its definitely possible to do trades and not destroy your body but that would require treating workers with respect and not forcing them to work through sickness and injury. I don't think most bosses are capable of that.