{"id":19540,"date":"2025-07-17T11:06:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T11:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antoniruiz.com\/?p=19540"},"modified":"2025-07-17T18:25:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T18:25:05","slug":"from-apprentice-to-entrepreneur-trades-and-professions-the-true-premium-employment-of-the-21st-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antoniruiz.com\/en\/from-apprentice-to-entrepreneur-trades-and-professions-the-true-premium-employment-of-the-21st-century\/","title":{"rendered":"From Apprentice to Entrepreneur: Trades and Professions, the True Premium Employment of the 21st Century"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I was just 14 years old, like so many young people of my generation, I began working as an apprentice in the energy and fluid installation sector in Badalona. There, without even knowing it, I met people like Jos\u00e9 El\u00edas, with whom we shared similar origins: a culture of hard work, learning from the ground up, and the desire to build something valuable, starting from a trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, decades later, Jos\u00e9 El\u00edas is a business leader with more than 180 companies under his leadership. And in my case, I have had the privilege of evolving from an installer to an entrepreneur, later as Secretary General of an association of companies in the sector, director of a continuing education academy for workers, and currently, a consultant and promoter of the value of vocational training and trades in our country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Trades are not the past: they are the present\u2026 and the future.
We are experiencing a silent but profound transformation. While some continue to seek certainty in university degrees that are out of step with market reality, Europe and Spain face a significant shortage of qualified professionals in key trades: carpenters, electricians, plumbers, mechanics, die-makers, farmers\u2026 All of them are at the heart of our cities, industries, and homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are not minor professions. On the contrary: these occupations are destined to become premium jobs, increasingly sought-after, essential, and highly promising professions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Compass: Vocation, Specialization, and Values
My professional career has always been guided by three pillars: perseverance, generosity, and teamwork. I have been fortunate to surround myself with people and organizations that share this same approach. I have also learned to distance myself from anything that is not aligned with my understanding of life and work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This journey has been based on a solid foundation: vocational training, complemented by higher education, always with a practical perspective, connected to the market and the social needs of each moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Solid to Liquid: The New Era of Professionals
I was recently listening to a podcast with Miquel Roca Junyent, lawyer, politician, and one of the founders of the 1978 Constitution. Roca explained how, in his time, the value of a lawyer lay in memorizing what Article 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure stated. Today, the important thing is not so much memorizing, but knowing how to apply knowledge, knowing how to search for it, and contextualize it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We live in a liquid society, as Bauman would say, in which knowledge is available 24\/7 and where the true professional differential lies not only in what you know, but in what you know how to do and how you do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s dignify technical professions
It’s time to honor, value, and dignify the professions. Not as a plan B, but as a plan A for thousands of young people seeking a full, sustainable, and purposeful professional life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no better foundation for building the future than that made with hands, knowledge, dedication, and the will to be useful to society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was just 14 years old, like so many young people of my generation, I began working as an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antoniruiz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/antoniruiz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/antoniruiz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antoniruiz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antoniruiz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/antoniruiz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19541,"href":"https:\/\/antoniruiz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19540\/revisions\/19541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antoniruiz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antoniruiz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antoniruiz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antoniruiz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}