Can someone give me a reason not to give up on this career?
I’ve been doing carpentry for 2.5 years, 25 years old. I’ve had a lot of trouble carving myself out a career path, I’ve been doing kitchens for the past year or so and occasionally some Reno and framing work am currently waiting for the union registration to open for my city. Due to the fact there’s not enough demand for workers (major North American city of 3 million people btw) ive been waiting for around 8 months for the union to start taking people and nothing has happened yet, and it doesn’t happen on a fixed schedule so there’s no guarantee its gonna happen anytime soon. According to the website, the most I could hope to make from being a union carpenter in my city is about $200 less per bi weekly paycheque then my girlfriend makes at her entry level serving job. Im sitting here waiting for the union to open, where I can expect to be on a salary of living paycheque to paycheque renting a room with other people for at least another year and a half. Im just jaded and confused. I enjoy woodworking quite a bit but im starting to think the glory days of making a successful living off of being a carpenter may be over in my city. My boss always tells me about how this is a humble career and I can’t expect too much, I don’t expect to be a millionaire but to be able to own a house someday would be nice and its pretty humbling to be doing framing and installing $4000 cabinets in peoples houses all the while making literally half as much money as my girlfriend makes taking peoples orders at a restaurant. I’ve also considered maybe i just don’t know HOW to make money from this career and if I knew better how to take my own side jobs or maybe start my own company someday then I could make a better living. So yeah if anybody has any advice let me know, im just feeling very lost and confused, I like carpentry quite a bit and would love to have a successful career but I have no guidance as to how to make it work for myself and im starting to feel like I should just give up and do it as a side gig and take up contracting or real estate instead. Let me know what you guys think