Are typical white-collar roles just totally cooked now?

I work at a Fortune 100 company that has an entire skyscraper full of people at HQ as well as satellite offices nationwide. We are the definition of “white collar desk job” - spending all day on MS Teams and Outlook.

We have roles such as Program Manager, Project Manager, Engineer, Architect etc etc

With that said, we have entire departments and teams full of project and program managers who make between 50 and 80k a year. Our Senior Project Managers who are the top shelf make 90 to 95k a year.

Engineer titles range from 60 to 100k, roughly in line with the PMs.

All of these roles require college degrees and several rounds of hiring interviews etc.

I stumbled upon a post in another subreddit talking about blue collar salary ranges and I shit you not they had at least 40 separate posts from people talking about these random blue collar jobs they do and it was all over 100k a year salary.

I’m not joking one dude said he was a garbage man and makes 105k a year… then you got things like UPS drivers delivering cardboard for 100k+ a year.

All of these jobs mind you require no college, mostly just high school and a good work ethic.

Really made me think that currently and certainly into the future that white collar jobs are totally screwed when compared to blue collar work.

It's one of those conversations that nobody has except whispering here on Reddit. If AI is replacing everybody then how do you support the consumer society? One of the great mysteries but nobody talks about it really so very strange the quiet before the storm

I think you’re severely underpaid.

I work for a massive American company and I work with engineers who make 150,000 base salary.

Feel like everyone is talking about that all the time, it's like one of the defining political issues right now? Genuinely confused at you not seeing people talk about that, I feel like it's extremely common irl, in social media, and traditional media

Sounds like your white collar workers are quite underpaid at that company. The ones I know (and I'm not in a super high cost of living area) are normally 150k+ for those roles. Some of those are in tech but not all.

Its all supply and demand, you are also not accounting for the true cost of your benefits, which most white collar professionals overlook.

Real health insurance for a family is around 24k a year, of which your employer is paying the majority of. Blue collar professionals typically don't have that, or 401k match, or vision, dental, etc.

White collar jobs also don't typically destroy your body and can be worked into your 60's with relative ease.

I hear it mentioned as I just mentioned it. Sure it's on everybody's mind and occasional lip but with no consensus, understanding or even prediction. It's the elephant in the room. How can you have a consumer society to feed those billionaires what they need when you don't have workers making enough money to buy the goods

And more importantly it's not discussed actively in the halls of Congress. This is truly a problem not looking forward to what's ahead. But then again this is what the GOP does best at the moment anyway Epstein distract with a war. Who would notice you have no health insurance, billionaires the trillionaire have massive tax cuts, social security is unfixed etc etc. Of course we would talk about such a profound problem as this openly and challenge the very source of money and blood that the GOP slurps up from wealthy high tech donors right

If those are US dollars, seems like your company is paying way to low. Company I work for, which is not a high end tech company, pays ~$80k for a bachelor's degree college grad.

White collar roles are going to need to be more productive or be cut to afford the costs of AI and make businesses more "efficient". So either engage with the company's demands and try to up-skill or quit/get fired/replaced and work with your body picking up trash or laying concrete. Seems like the direction we are headed.

There is some truth to the garbage man role. Not a lot of people want to do it and it's physically taxing, hazardous, and dangerous. They can make good money. UPS truck drivers deal with the same thing.

They can work a huge amount overtime on top it too. There is never garbage to not pick up and parcels not needing delivered.

However, be advised that those physically taxing and hazardous jobs tend to also take years of a person's life expectancy. So there's a balance.

Im a Manager of a PM team , MBA, 10 years of direct PM experience, 130k , when i first started as a junior PM it was 58k.

Blue collar professionals have the same benefits packages as white collar. I pay 50% insurance and have 401k match.
Any reputable company has these same benefits.

If you land a job as a union electrician / plumber / carpenter etc basically any of those “skilled trades” your almost set for life

Pension and pretty sure health insurance is 100% free, not to mention making absurd money