Blue-collar jobs are an integral part of society, and some of them even pay better than traditional white-collar jobs. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t come with serious risks. Before you decide to jump into your career, it is important to do it with your eyes wide open.

Physical Exhaustion

Most blue-collar jobs require you to be on your feet for 8 hours or more every day, doing manual labor. While you may be in good shape, this will still be incredibly exhausting. Additionally, most blue-collar jobs don’t follow a typical 9-5 schedule. You may end up working an 8-hour shift overnight or on a swing shift, or you could end up in a more traditional shift work schedule with shifts that change throughout the week. Those odd hours and lack of consistency can make it very difficult to establish regular sleep patterns. Even so, make sure you are getting at least 8 hours of quality sleep. Use blackout curtains to help you sleep during daylight hours and keep your room cool too.

Great Risk of Injury

Because blue-collar jobs are manual labor, they can wear out your body much faster than a white-collar job will. Heavy lifting, repetitive movements, operating around machinery, and other workplace dangers make it incredibly common for blue-collar employees to get injured. This is even more likely when companies are short-staffed, don’t prioritize safety, or when the employees are tired. Blue-collar work requires both physical and mental agility. Being tired can lead to simple mistakes that become big problems. About 25% of adults become disabled before retirement age. Even if injured workers return to work eventually, they aren’t always able to do the jobs they did before.

Lack of Stability

A lack of stability for blue-collar jobs undermines the opportunity to make money, grow a career, and feel secure in life. Unions attempt to address this for many blue-collar industries, but they can’t fix all of the issues. Upward mobility is much harder, and pushing for a change in bad workplace conditions is more likely to get you booted than it is to result in any change. Additionally, automation is replacing more blue-collar jobs. Replaced workers may struggle to find employment if they lack the skills necessary to continue working in their chosen industry in other ways or to make a dramatic career shift.

Blue-collar jobs are important, and the people who work them should be treated with dignity and respect. If this is your chosen career path, make sure you go into it aware of the challenges you will face. It is possible to make a good career. You just may have some roadblocks to work around during the process.

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