Is there an instructor crisis?

[VikingDives]

What is the cost for the standard recreational instructor insurance policy in the US now?

I paid over 800 for DAN liability last year, and it only goes up from there...

 

[Pressurehead]

In other sports hobbies it is the same, like photography.

I somehow made a living out of diving and photography , not under water photography, I do not like taking a camera diving [except the old Nikonos ones in the past for work].
Retired from pro photography now, weddings were my bread and butter when I was not teaching diving and running a dive charter, still love photography and diving [not at the same time].
All this talk about real jobs, ha, if that is the case, my only real job was The Royal Australian Navy for 20 + years [and diving and photography was involved], funny that.

Back on topic:
Not many keep teaching scuba after a few years, there is a few here 'who stuck it out', well done.

I was charging more for an OW course years ago than the local shops a charging now, how do they do it?

 

[berndo]

All of this was based on the current younger generation work force who feel too "overworked"...

I'm born in the 80 and in Germany the boomer generation could feed a family and buy a house with one middle class job. I think these days people actually are working more to afford the same things. I know plenty of couples in their 30s were both of them work in decent full time jobs and still won't be able to pay off a house before retirement, if they can even find one they can affort in the first place.

 

[scubaozy]

A lot quit within 2 years. Remember, in every hobby, a person lasts on average 3-5 years. Some start technical diving after their recreational career, but also then, most quit then after 1 or 2 courses as technical diving is not that exciting and dangerous as expected.

If you are referring hobbyist instructors, imho they last much longer as they do not have to make living out of diving, just doing in for the fun of it. Majority of the people I worked with, did quit. People who did not quit are usually the ones with their own businesses and are fully invested into this or the ones who have not a lot of other choices.

 

[rhwestfall]

sorry, I call BS....

We drove $1,000 (US) used cars, didn't have $300/month cable-phone-internet bills, didn't spend $200 on jeans, etc.

There is no entitlement (which the expectation is now)...

 

[BoltSnap]

I paid over 800 for DAN liability last year, and it only goes up from there...

Ouch.

 

[berndo]

sorry, I call BS....

We drove $1,000 (US) used cars, didn't have $300/month cable-phone-internet bills, didn't spend $200 on jeans, etc.

There is no entitlement (which the expectation is now)...

I think you're being gaslight by some BS articles. I don't know anyone that spends 300 bucks on phone or internet bills or 200 bucks for a pair of pants.
Families could live off of one normal income and today they cannot.
A normal sized house in my (kinda rual) area would have been 60ish grand or so in the early 80s or so. Now you can easily spend 500 grand and don't ask about heating and electricity. Wages haven't gone up by this much. Not even close.
I'm not surprised fewer younger people are spending money on hobbies like diving.

 

[rhwestfall]

I think you're being gaslight by some BS articles.

No, it is what I see, experience, live...

 

[Lorenzoid]

I think it depends mostly by location. For gap year kids, a year in the tropics with a zero to hero program before going back to uni sounds like a lot of fun.

I agree. I think places like where the OP lives in California may see a decline. Dive instructor pay is surely a pittance compared with the cost of living.

Tropical locales, on the other hand, may even be seeing a spike about now, as people want to get out and travel the world for a few years after the restrictive Covid years. Becoming a dive instructor is a way to do that.

 

[drrich2]

I'm born in the 80 and in Germany the boomer generation could feed a family and buy a house with one middle class job. I think these days people actually are working more to afford the same things.

In the U.S. the first part of that was somewhat true, with a number of conditions (i.e.: they weren't 'the same things'):

1.) Smaller home by today's standards.
2.) Either no t.v., or the only one in the house was black & white with no cable or satellite t.v. bill.
3.) No personal computers, internet plans, cell phones or tablets or data plans, and nobody knew what a gaming console was.
4.) Often no or limited air conditioning; per Googling (Energy.gov) it was prevalent in most new homes by the late 60's.
5.) Much of modern health care didn't exist, and prices hadn't inflated so.
6.) The family likely had one vehicle, and the father did a lot of the maintenance and repair work on it.
7.) The family didn't have as many clothes, shoes and such, and the mother did a lot of the repair work on clothes.
8.) Kids didn't have near the range of personal 'toys' many do now.
9.) A lot of blue collar factory jobs were physically laborious and wore on the body, and I suspect a lot of their workplaces wouldn't have been air conditioned.

A 50's era lifestyle might be workable on one job today, if you could find someone today in the U.S. eager to live like that. Let's also recall that post-World War 2 much of the world was devastated and the U.S. became a manufacturing hub for the world, leading to an over-hyped golden age of people getting decent jobs right out of high school. Take a broader look at U.S. history and we see the Great Depression, Dust Bowl, a long history of predominantly agrarian lifestyles (really hard work), etc...