The plumbing has been and in fact, it remains one of the most demanded trades in Spain. Just try to make an appointment with a professional to see how the waiting lists become a month and a half. Despite the demand, the reality is a different one, because less and less young people want to devote themselves to it. The reason, according to Santi, a 37 -year -old plumber with more than 20 years of experience in the sector, is clear and are the physical effort required by work does not compensate for the salaries paid today.
Santi has explained it in an interview at the Pódcast Sector Crafts. “You tell a boy who wins 1,200 euros sitting on a computer and plumber 1.200, where would you go?” For him, the only way to prosper in this sector is as an autonomous, throwing extra hours or weekends, which allows increasing income. Even so, he warns: “The plumbing leaves a mark. With 37 years I already have marked knees.”
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According to what you work like this
Santi’s work tour is a reflection of how the sector has evolved. With just 18 years, after a period of practices, he signed his first contract where he charged 600 euros per month per full time. A year, I already worked only in the houses, and when he claimed a rise, the company took it to 900 euros. But he “didn’t settle.”
The jump came through mouth to mouth: another company offered 1,200 euros, folding its initial salary. Shortly after, it went to a company that lifted new buildings, where it reached 1,400 or 1,500 euros. “There I released like fish in the water,” he recalls.
Now, he soon understood that the real money was out of payroll. “I saw that people earned a lot and I had a fixed salary. I asked what I had to do and they said: Autonomous.” With the capitalization of the strike, in which he explains that there were about 23,000 or 24,000 euros, he bought a van and tools, starting his way as an independent professional. Since then, he says, “according to what you do like this you will win.”
“If salaries do not change there is no future”
Beyond money, Santi defends the satisfaction of “giving hot water to a family that did not have it” or seeing a work finished from the beginning to the end. But he acknowledges that the physicist spends an invoice. “The plumbing is not easy, you stain, you put your knees and suffer. You have to assess that, behind a tap that works, there are many hours of work.”
He also denounces the prejudices associated with his profession: “It is thought that the plumber is that of the unblocks, the guinea pig. I do not do that anymore. The plumbing is much more, and cool.”
Today Santi directs a small team with his nephew and a childhood friend, but observes with concern the lack of young people interested in learning the trade. While electricity seems to attract more, plumbing barely awakens vocations. “The average age of the officers is high. I don’t know why the kids doesn’t call them.”
The problem, insists, is salary. “If salaries do not change, there will be no relay. There are no chairs for everyone in office work. People are needed in trades, but for that you have to dignify what is paid.”