Construction work, such as bricklayers or plumbers, is suffering in Spain from a labor shortage that is caused, among other things, by the lack of generational replacement and the working conditions offered in these sectors. One of them is carpentry and there are many veteran workers who explain why young people do not want to dedicate themselves to that trade: “Before you learned for free and you got burns, blows and low salaries”.
A 44-year-old carpenter named Selu was on the YouTube podcast ‘Trades Sector‘ where he explained what his professional life has been like, ensuring that there were many years in which he felt that he was underpaid. Now he owns his own workshop, after register as a self-employed worker but it wasn’t always like that. In fact, his first steps were taken in the family business, a workshop that was dedicated to making custom furniture and selling it.
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“I want to thank a person who told me a phrase: he told me, you are a bad businessman but a very good carpenter. I signed up as self-employed without even having enough to eat because I invested what I earned in tools.”
When asked how he started in the trade, Selu smiles and explains that his beginnings were “from below, sanding.” From the first moment he fell in love with his job, even though his father did not value what he did. “I wasn’t the useless guy he said he was, and what got me ahead was carpentry because I came to believe that I wasn’t worth it.”
“I left earning 600 euros and that is a pittance”
During the interview, he remembers how the low salary he earned in the family business, “600 euros,” made him start looking for a living in other workshops “where he was one of the guys.” “When I was 25 and a half years old I made an important mistake and that is when I was beginning to take off in my profession, I returned to the family business.”
For a year and a half “I was on my own” and “it was spectacular,” he admits. Because to the freedom of earning more money we must add the feeling of becoming independent. “In companies I was starting to get paid under conditions, I had money.”
But he returned to the family business and quickly realized that the salary was not the same as when he worked as an employee. “In ’96 I started earning 2,000 pesetas, and in the end I left earning 600 euros, which is a pittance.”
“When I started as a freelancer I didn’t even have a single payment because I contributed little to the family business”
Encouraged by his wife, he registered as self-employed and began a new career path. “I didn’t even have a single payment because I contributed little when I was in the family business.” They had to draw on “both of their savings” to be able to start a business, which “was very little.”
They were looking for premises to rent and “good things happen to good people, and in my case, someone who had rented a 200-meter warehouse appeared and offered me 100 for me and that was unthinkable to me.”
So he accepted and with the remaining 2,000 euros he bought the tools he needed, some from “an older man who has already closed the carpentry shop.”
Little by little the work grew. “When someone hires you, it is essential that you be honest.” And that’s what applies. “A worker who is with me, puts in his hours and finishes.”