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What They Do
About This Career
Uses hand-welding, flame-cutting, hand-soldering, or brazing equipment to weld or join metal components or to fill holes, indentations, or seams of fabricated metal products.
This career is part of the Energy cluster Production pathway.
A person in this career:
- Operates safety equipment and uses safe work habits.
- Examines workpieces for defects and measures workpieces with straightedges or templates to ensure conformance with specifications.
- Welds components in flat, vertical, or overhead positions.
- Detects faulty operation of equipment or defective materials and notifies supervisors.
- Selects and installs torches, torch tips, filler rods, and flux, according to welding chart specifications or types and thicknesses of metals.
- Recognizes, sets up, and operates hand and power tools common to the welding trade, such as shielded metal arc and gas metal arc welding equipment.
- Marks or tags material with proper job number, piece marks, and other identifying marks as required.
- Determines required equipment and welding methods, applying knowledge of metallurgy, geometry, and welding techniques.
- Prepares all material surfaces to be welded, ensuring that there is no loose or thick scale, slag, rust, moisture, grease, or other foreign matter.
- Aligns and clamps workpieces together, using rules, squares, or hand tools, or position items in fixtures, jigs, or vises.
Working Conditions and Physical Demands
People who do this job report that:
- You would often handle loads up to 20 lbs., sometimes up to 50 lbs. You might do a lot of lifting, carrying, pushing or pulling.
- Work in this occupation involves use of protective items such as safety shoes, glasses, gloves, hearing protection, a hard hat, or personal flotation devices
- Exposure to pollutants, gases, dust, fumes, odors, poor ventilation, etc.
- Work in this occupation involves using your hands to hold, control, and feel objects more than one-third of the time
- Sound and noise levels are loud and distracting
Working in this career involves (physical activities):
Work Hours and Travel
Specialty and Similar Careers
Careers that are more detailed or close to this career:
- MIG Welder (Metal Inert Gas Welder)
- TIG Welder (Tungsten Inert Gas Welder)
- Welder Fitter
- Fabrication Welder
- Maintenance Welder
- Wirer
- Solderer — Joins or mends with solder.
- Brazer
- Assembly Line Brazer
Every year the U.S. Department of Labor conducts national surveys of wage data by occupation in every state and in all industry divisions. These surveys are conducted through the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) program.
The statistics collected for one year are published the next fall. For example, 2013 wage information was published in the fall of 2014.
There are over 800 occupations in the surveys, and these occupations cover the entire U.S. labor market. The surveys ask for reports in a scale of ranges for both hourly wages and annual wages.
In many cases, these occupations are broad enough to cover many more detailed specialties of an occupation. A specific occupation may be included in a broader occupational category for which labor market data is available. When you look at the statistics for a broad category, be aware that the salary data for a specific career may differ.
For more details about how wage information is collected and calculated by the U.S. Department of Labor, visit their website at http://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm.
Every year the U.S. Department of Labor conducts a national survey of over 400,000
employers in every state and in all industry divisions. This survey is conducted
through the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) program. Every other year the
department publishes outlook information based on these surveys.
Each outlook period covers 10 years. For example, in 2003 the outlook information
was published for 2004-2014. Employers are asked to report the number of employees
in about 770 different occupations that cover the entire U.S. labor market.
From this information, staffing patterns for different industries are established.
Industry growth is projected into the future based on past trends and current economic
conditions. Industry staffing patterns are then applied to the industry projections
to obtain occupational projections.
In many cases, these occupations are broad enough to cover many more detailed specialties
of an occupation. A specific occupation may be included in a broader occupational
category for which labor market data is available. When you look at the statistics
for a broad category, be aware that the employment data for a specific field may
differ.
For more details about how employment information is collected and calculated by
the U.S. Department of Labor, visit their website at http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.tn.htm.
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