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Saw a stat that only 2 percent of avionics techs are under 25, is this trade dying or just changing?
I was poking around the Aircraft Electronics Association site after work and found a report saying the average age in our field is 54, with just 2 percent under 25. Half of me thinks that means shops will be scrambling for warm bodies soon and pay will jump, but the other half thinks younger folks see the paperwork and FAA regs and run for software jobs instead. A guy at the shop in Wichita said he has been trying to hire for 8 months with zero luck. So which is it, are we headed for a shortage that finally bumps wages, or is the trade just going to shrink?
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sandraf8411d ago
Whoa hold on, that 2 percent number gets tossed around a lot but you're reading it wrong. That stat comes from the AEA's own member survey, and AEA members are mostly the older repair station owners and shop leads, so of course the average age skews high. It's like polling a retirement home and saying nobody in town is young. The real picture is that a lot of young guys do get into avionics, they just don't stay in the little GA shops, they go to the airlines, the military contractors, or drone and defense work where the money and benefits are better. So the trade isn't dying, it's splitting, with the small shops getting squeezed while the big outfits soak up the kids. Your Wichita guy can't hire because he's fishing in a pond that's mostly empty, not because the whole lake is dry.
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