- Electricians in India could earn Rs 1,000 per hour within two years, predicts Ritesh Jain
- Skilled tradespeople may move abroad for higher wages and greater respect
- Blue-collar careers can lead to businesses beyond just earning a daily wage
The next bill that makes you rethink India's job market could come from your electrician. Ritesh Jain, founder of Canada-based Pinetree Macro, believes electricians in India could command Rs 1,000 an hour within two years, as skilled workers find better pay and greater respect overseas.
In a LinkedIn post, Jain returned to an argument he has been making for some time: “Blue collar is the new white collar.”
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This time, he attached a post by entrepreneur Prakash Dadlani, whom he described as an Indian electrical appliance manufacturer with three decades of experience. Dadlani's message challenged a familiar assumption about career success: that a corporate job should always be the ambition, and a skilled trade the fallback.
“If you love your kids, start exploring blue collar work in India,” Dadlani wrote.
The Rs 1,000-An-Hour Prediction
Jain's forecast rests on a warning about the workers India could lose.
He argued that skilled tradespeople would move abroad for substantially higher wages and the social standing their work earns there. By the time India recognises the opportunity in these occupations, he suggested, overseas markets may already have drawn away existing talent.
“I give it max 2 years before we see 1000 bucks an hour electrician in India,” he wrote.
That is Jain's prediction, rather than an established wage benchmark. His post did not specify a city, the kind of electrical work involved or whether the figure referred to a customer's service charge or a worker's earnings.
But the argument behind the number is clear: India may have to pay considerably more for skills it has been slow to value.
Jain also claimed that institutions offering blue-collar courses in Canada and the US were seeing large enrolments, although he did not cite figures or identify institutions in the post.
A Trade Can Become A Business
Dadlani's post, shared by Jain, made a broader case for looking beyond the first job.
A young person who learns electrical work, welding, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, or manufacturing could eventually build a contracting business, open a factory or create a hardware brand, he argued.
The opportunity, in his telling, extends well beyond earning a wage for a day's work. Technical expertise can become the foundation of a business.
Social media adds another route to growth. Dadlani suggested that tradespeople could use it to demonstrate their skills, attract customers and sell their expertise beyond their immediate neighbourhood.
He went as far as arguing that this path could eventually earn someone more than a white-collar career. That remains his assessment, rather than a guaranteed outcome for people entering these trades.
The Status Problem
Dadlani said demand for blue-collar workers was at an all-time high in countries such as the US, Canada and Australia, and predicted that India would see a similar shift.
Yet his appeal was not for every child to become an electrician or plumber. It was for families to stop ranking skilled trades beneath office work.
“I'm saying we need to stop treating skilled trades as inferior to white-collar jobs,” he wrote.
With millions of young Indians chasing the same corporate jobs, Dadlani argued that more should be encouraged to become builders, operators and business owners.
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