There are quite a few types of blue collar jobs that you may be interested in applying for. Most of them offer you the training you need, good experience for future work, and a chance to make some decent money. What is offered really depends on where you reside though. Here are some options to look at.
Food Service
There are quite a few jobs out there that fall under the category of food service. They include cooking, waitressing, dishwashing, and hostess. Many of these jobs involve interacting with people. If you’re good with people and communicate comfortably, this might be something to look into. If you are cooking, you will be trained so don’t worry if you don’t have too many skills in that department yet.
These are generally going to be hourly wage jobs, with flexible hours. There is also the potential for tips which can give you some fast money on a regular basis in between paychecks. That is always a very nice perk to have with food service blue collar work.
Warehousing
There is a demand for blue collar work with warehousing. This often involves fulfilling orders, working with spreadsheets and packaging them. Some computer work may be necessary. However, these days just about everyone has some basic computer skills so that shouldn’t be a barrier. You will be trained on the particular program in use.
The other part of warehousing is material handling. Every last item in a warehouse was brought in, placed somewhere according to some system of organization. At some point it moves back out. Warehousing could entail unloading or loading trucks, train cars, transporting pallets of materials or goods around the warehouse with a fork truck. If you are trained with fork trucks, say so in your cover letter and go for it.
Manufacturing
Repetition is often a big part of manufacturing when it comes to blue color jobs. It really doesn’t matter what you happen to be taking part in. You may be working on an assembly line so you only have to learn a few specific things. However, speed and accuracy are usually both very important to do well at this type of job. There may be some paperwork involved too such as quality assurance measures at regular intervals.
Electronics
You don’t have to have a degree to assemble electronics either. There is such a demand out there for such products that there are tons of blue collar jobs that fit this category. This is often going to be assembly line work, as well, with each area of the factory doing a specific job to create the overall product.
Food Processing
There are blue collar jobs that also involve processing food. This includes chicken and beef. They come in one door on the hoof and leave as refrigerated or frozen food at the end of the assembly line. This type of work requires skills that you will be taught, not the least of which is working safely within the parameters of OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration), which must be strictly followed.
Back to Manufacturing
There are still many manufacturing jobs to be filled. Historically, manufacturing jobs are the higher paying jobs.
Most of these positions are specialized, requiring specialized training. Recently, it has been reported that there are many jobs unfilled because the local labor pool lacks qualifications for these jobs.
If I were looking for a good solid middle class income in manufacturing, I’d have a visit with a community college or two and find out what I need to qualify and make it my business to get some courses under my belt.