artisans salary - need reply from SA living in OZ

[alexandra]

I would like to ask artisans ( especially instrument makers) that live in OZ, how would you compare living standards/buying power there to here. Can you enjoy life on your kind of salary or do you also have to look at every penny? Besides leaving SA because of the crime and a grim future are you as an artisan better off there, or are you also looked upon as a 2nd class citizen? Do both parents have to work to survive on a artisan salary?

What do they call precision instrument maker there, we are struggling to look under this description for further info.

Alexandra

[AndreaL]

I would like to ask artisans ( especially instrument makers) that live in OZ, how would you compare living standards/buying power there to here. Can you enjoy life on your kind of salary or do you also have to look at every penny? Besides leaving SA because of the crime and a grim future are you as an artisan better off there, or are you also looked upon as a 2nd class citizen? Do both parents have to work to survive on a artisan salary?

What do they call precision instrument maker there, we are struggling to look under this description for further info.

Alexandra

Hi Alexandra

My husband is an electrician, in RSA we pretty much lived month to month and I feel artisans are looked down on.

As an example an electrician can earn anywhere between $43 000 and $120 000 depending in which industry, mining jobs pay very well.

When we arrived we were at the bottom of the scale but are moving up and starting to enjoy a very nice standard of living, we arrived with only our clothes and about $5000, crazy really, but nearly 3 years later I pretty much have everything I left.

We have never been looked down on, I have encountered no snobbery whatsoever, in fact most people are interested to hear hubby is an electrician, that probably has to do with the fact that if you want a plug point fitted in your house you can wait weeks for a tradesman and be charged $50.

I worked part time at night when we arrived as things were tight and day-care is expensive.

My hubby starts a new job next week and if I choose to work we should be able to save all my salary, in fact I can see us having a down payment on a home within a few years, we just couldn't do that in RSA.

There are no second class citizens here and the future looks pretty rosy.

Sorry I can't help with your final question.

Andrea L

[GerhardinOz]

I would like to ask artisans ( especially instrument makers) that live in OZ, how would you compare living standards/buying power there to here. Can you enjoy life on your kind of salary or do you also have to look at every penny? Besides leaving SA because of the crime and a grim future are you as an artisan better off there, or are you also looked upon as a 2nd class citizen? Do both parents have to work to survive on a artisan salary?

What do they call precision instrument maker there, we are struggling to look under this description for further info.

Alexandra

Artisans (called tradesmen here) can get between $50-000 to $80-000 per year in big cities. If you are willing to live in a small mining town you can get between $110-000 and $150-000 per year and sometimes you can get a house with phone and electricity with that. On mine sites they expect you to work long hours and the towns can be very remote. You can also make good money with FIFO jobs. I don’t think any tradies are worse off moving from SA to Aus.