- Lexis Czumak-Abreu is a full-time electrician who shares her work on social media.
- As of 2022, she has gained a social media following of 2.2 million and is earning $200,000 per year from these platforms.
- Gen Z Americans are increasingly choosing careers over traditional college degrees.
Lexis Chumak Abreu graduated from college with a pre-med degree but decided it wasn’t for her.
Chumac Abreu became a full-time electrical engineer instead of taking another job in the medical or scientific field. she told Business Insider last month.
Since 2022, she’s amassed a following of 2.2 million across TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, where she watches her carry heavy equipment and fix loads of wiring, all part of her day-to-day job as an electrician.
None of this money comes from her employer: She told The Wall Street Journal that she makes $200,000 a year from her social media pages, including branding deals with companies. The average electrician in New York makes about $70,000 a year, while the average social media influencer makes about $58,000, according to ZipRecruiter data.
Despite the money she’s making from social media, she decided not to cut back on her hours as an employee of an electrical services company. She told The Wall Street Journal that she wants the company to know she’s a trustworthy employee. And because the majority of her feed is about her life as an electrician, she would likely post less if she worked fewer hours.
She said she shoots and edits all of her videos herself, editing footage during lunch breaks and at night.
“There are definitely weeks when I feel completely exhausted and overloaded,” she told the Journal.
“Unlike an office job where you go to the same building every day, I work in a different place every day. Every day I experience different things and meet different people,” Chumac Abreu previously told BI.
Interest in trade jobs comes as more Gen Z Americans are considering the pros and cons of a four-year college degree.
The cost of going to college is outpacing inflation, forcing young people to take out student loans that will stick with them long after they graduate, and a degree is no longer a panacea for a high-paying starting salary, even in top fields: Only one in four Americans believes a college degree is very important for landing a high-paying job, according to a Pew Research Center survey of 5,000 U.S. adults released last month.
The time and expense involved in obtaining a traditional degree is encouraging young people to ditch their diplomas and put on their tool belts. National Student Information Center Enrollment at vocational-focused community colleges grew about 16% last year, the highest level since they began tracking the data in 2018, according to a report by education nonprofits.
“These are the kinds of jobs that are being considered,” Elaina Farnsworth, co-founder of Skillfusion, a certification program for electric vehicle technicians, told BI last month. She has noticed a significant increase in Gen Z workers applying to her program.
