| By :
Martin Hofschroer
A former executive director has urged employees to quit the rat race and retrain for a career in manual labour. Michael Crawford, who previously worked for a policy organisation, announced in The Times that more people should pursue a career in manual labours as it provides greater job satisfaction. Crawford explained that people who complete electrical courses and plumbing courses enjoy better job security compared to those who take the academic route to become qualified for white-collar work. "Some programmers and accountants and radiologists, for example, find their jobs outsourced to distant countries. Plumbers, electricians and mechanics do not," he wrote in the publication. People on plastering courses and tiling courses can look forward to a bright future in employment during the economic downturn because the skills gained are essential for society, according to the author of The Case for Working with Your Hands. Having a recognised trade qualification is also advantageous as it gives people a job to fall back on if their initial career plans fail to take off, claims Crawford. People should avoid university and instead study a vocation by going on electrical courses because of the high levels of graduate unemployment in the UK, argues Crawford. People can expect a mentally challenging job once they have gained a trade qualification, states Crawford. He wrote in The Times: "I have found the satisfactions of the work to be very much bound up with the intellectual challenges it presents. With stakes that are often high and immediate, the manual trades elicit heedful absorption in one's work." Crawford said that he was inspired to leave his job as an executive director after he met a motorcycle mechanic and realised that employment as a tradesman was ultimately more fulfilling compared to life in an office. The feeling of accomplishing technical tasks also persuaded Crawford to train for a job in the manual sector. He explained in The Times: "I never ceased to take pleasure in the moment, at the end of a job, when I would flip the switch: "And there was light!" Matthew Crawford currently combines his job as a motorcycle repairman with a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia.
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