The Coming CRISIS Nobody Is Talking About
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- čas přidán 25. 06. 2024
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We are tired of being treated like we are disposable, underpaid, taken advantage of.
I was a combat medic for the army, got my NREMT certs while in training and had them still when I got out. In training, we were told emts were paid next to nothing and that it would never be worth it to become one. Well, I tried becoming one after my time in the service, and they were completely correct. I did the job for a few days and walked away with no regrets because the workload and responsibilities were insane for the pitiful amount we were paid. Yes, saving people is rewarding, but you know what also is rewarding? Being able to afford to not live in my car.
As a career firefighter.... the McDonald's in the city pays more hourly than what I make...education hour wise we spend almost twice the number of hours getting our career firefighter and medic certs than a police officer going through their academy and they make $7 more on the hour to start..... and our city council doesn't see a problem with that 🤷♂️
After reading some comments I should address all the nay sayers who feel like we don't do anything and don't deserve what we get....As soon as you sign up for this job you can automatically take 7 years off your life expectancy due to the health problems that arise from the job...At my station we run about 1500 calls a year both fire and EMS.... We did the math and when you factor in time on calls, house duties, vehicle checks, public events etc... we have boots on the ground on average 14.5 hours of the 24... and we are not an overly busy station....yes McDonald's workers deserve livable and fair wages but you don't need a high school diploma to work there, you can have felonies to work there and you don't need over two years of classes and training, both fire and medics, to get a foot in the door....
Where do you work?
@@Patriot-nz5lz southwest Ohio
@@joeh6822 that’s crazy, how can you expect to get people when you don’t even pay close to a livable wage, one of the only good things about the state of Massachusetts is that the fire departments pay fairly well, you do 2 tho as most are paramedic also and run the ambulance but average pay around my area I’d say is around 80 k without OT
Houston is the same way.
Central Florida is the same way. PD makes 4-5$ more per hour fresh off the street compared to a FF/EMT or Medic.
Fair point. My son makes $35, base, as a commercial HVAC tech with two years experience. He gets lots of overtime and prevailing wage jobs, and he doesn't have to deal with meth heads in crisis.
Where can I pursue that career?😶🌫️
Sounds like your son chose a better career than you.
@@javierarteaga588Use the internet and find out. People in the trades are usually self starters and figure things like this out on their own.
Where is this? I left the field for the opposite reason, career prospects and pay were shit for the type of work I was doing. After 4 years plus a trade degree I only made 21 dollars an hour.
@@nicolasi4262 I know one of our local HVAC companies bills out at over $150 an hour. Most communications techs around here make at least $40 an hour. There are good jobs out there for the skilled.
I tried so hard 10 years ago to get on a fire department, got my medic, did the civil service tests etc, no dept would hire me because I wasnt a captains son or politically connected. Ended up going into nursing. I recently moved to a small town that has a call department and they just hired me for call. But your right theres no money in this field, as a nurse I make atleast double-triple what my firefighter friends are making and I have significantly less responsibility.
Yep ,that good ol boy system is biting them in the ass
Civil service is the biggest joke! I tried for years to get hired in my home town (pd), I left the state almost ten years ago for a pd job. The guys in my hometown make double what I do and run 2-3 bs calls a week, they primarily write traffic tickets to grandma. I’m hustling 10/11 calls a day, 5/6 priority calls a week in a major city while my salary is getting hit with severe pay compression! Btw our fire/ems is exactly the same pay scale!
It is so impossible to hire on with a big department, then you see them on the news complaining about poor staffing. It’s such a joke
I also agree there is a lot of that problem
Plus they dont fight fire. The run 85 percent medical calls. I make 150k a year in a trade no OT
I began working EMS as an EMT in 2022 and lasted about a year. I didn't mind the work itself, I really enjoyed it for the most part. The pay is so awful you can't afford to do anything but work. I already had experience doing construction and make the same amount doing that in a few days than two weeks of EMS.
Same reason why I left too, amr was starting new medics at 18 an hour in California ridiculous
Yessir that's exactly why I do plumbing and electrical and I didn't follow through with EMS and firefighting. If I want to work my ass off I want to be paid what I'm worth and not be basically paying the state and administrators to work.
@@richard5209 wow 18 for a paramedic. I was on my way to becoming a medic too but I seen the wage and decided it wasn’t worth it.
I was a paramedic for 8 years full time before finally going to nursing school. My first hourly pay as a paramedic in 2011 was $10.18/hr. My last hourly rate was $21.74 as a lieutenant. As a new grad nurse, though they did account for my ems experience, my rate was $37/hr plus differential, incentive, etc. I almost tripled my pay year to year.
Great video. It’s because wages suck so bad. I’ve been a FF/EMT for 18 years and I barely make $50k base salary. We really can’t have a side hustle where I work due to mandates. We have to work at least 1 OT shift a pay period to try and stay off the mandate list. We are just numbers to the senior staff and politicians. They burn me out and then wonder why we can’t replace people
city next to me is hiring for 12 dollars an hour... full time. That's pathetic. lol
Yup, I got a job offer that’s 10k more a year and I’m going to take it. I’ll be home at nights and won’t work anymore holidays. I’m going to miss the service and the camaraderie but on the flip side I won’t be getting my ass kicked consistently having 400+ calls a month. And I’m just a slower side of town too. 2 miles down the road they’re getting 20+ a day
You are 100% right . I worked for a career dept for 7 years and the only reason I was able to make 50k is OT. I had to do 4 OT shift a month to be able to live ( FL prices are high ) . I left and finished up my degree in Cybersecurity and now make double with less work and I don’t have to leave my house . Loved being a fireman, but it’s not worth the stress and headache.
Your department doesn't allow you to have a side hustle? When you leave your off their time. How can they enforce that?
@@clay8222 he means that he prolly works so much OT that it’s impossible to have a side hustle
It might be worth a look into by some municipalities to give first responders a tax break too. Any financial incentive is helpful.
many give 1000. a year to volinteer departments as a tax break and still they cannot pull enough people. Everybody thinks it is so easy except that a volunteer is required to attend the same training as the career people and the volunteers do it for free as well as weekly training and the constant B.S. calls and these volunteers do it virtually for free. Throw in all of the new ruiles and requirements and more traiining and now who has the time?
A career town pays a minimum 87000.per firefighter if you are a small town you usually have 2-3 on duty along with all the newest equipment, the unions and everything that goes with it.add to the fact that if there is a fire with people trapped technically if the department only has 3 on the engine they cannot go in to rescue anyone until they have enough people for the 2 in 2 out rule.That is where you have the same amount of firefighters outside as ypu are sending inside not counting the pump operators. A real laugh is that some places offer a whole 5.00 for a VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTER to respond to an avtive fire call. We volunteers do not do it for the money, we do it because we are proud of our towns and want to protect it and our people. The constant rule changes and the economy is killing the volunteer spirit.
@@georgemessler3345 good luck with that. They don’t give shit and if injured you have to go through workman’s comp which does not come close to your wages. They created this problem now they can unscrew it.
@@michaelmaglier3915 Good luck with what? I agree with you that they screwed everything up and need to fix it but will they? Or will it be they throw inexperienced firefighters from other nations that don't come close to the teaining we are forced to take.
Gun stores often and give you a discount
Live in Maryland, was a FF/EMT volunteer , starting a career academy next week. My volunteer DEPT was the only DEPT in the county that's slogan was "No Fail Nation" because we were the only Volunteer DEPT that hadn't failed a call for at least 5 years. The shortage of volunteers and career FF/EMTs as well as Medics is real even in one of the single most well praised and funded counties of MD is noticeable.
No one is unaffected by it. It truly can be a nightmare for a lot of people.
I think I know what firehouse that area is haha. I just moved out here 2 years ago for a career spot. Good luck, stay focused! It's a damn awesome career. Nothing beats the brotherhood. The money will follow someday
Educate yourself and get into anything but this as a career. Reality is cancer, divorce, co worker suicide, and departments that are now woke with ZERO LOYALTY! That s why people are running for the door! Glad I got on in 97 and I’m done. They have destroyed the job!
Nobody showed up yesterday to my neighbors medical call. It was low priority but still.
It’s so hard to find people that have the time to volunteer
Yep, seems like everyone works 12 hours every day
read my comment about volunteering in Canada.
@@MuffHam
I like the Canadian system. Keeping EMS a separate service. It's Government controlled.
With the Start of Paramedic in the US. It was Miami had Paramedic before the Show Emergency came on air. LA County did NOT want to lose the Private Ambulance service. The COSTS of running a Large Ladder or Pumper to EMS calls, equipment replacement costs.
Could go further for HIGHER pay, on say a SUV responding. Verses an Engine. To me in my Humble opinion it sounds like he is looking for Government intervention, to take care of the problem. Let the mainstream media scare people about shortages, then the Big Government comes in to save the day.
Right. To become even just an EMR takes a fairly intense period which is difficult to balance with work and family. Paramedic-level cert seems out of the question until I retire.
As a paid FF myself I'd love to volunteer in my off time, but I don't live in an area that is volunteer. Paid departments all around me. I have an intense level of respect, though, for those who can drop whatever they're doing in their life right away to go help someone else in desprate need.
Personally I think there is an unspoken issue that I’ve yet to see. I believe there are just not enough people who want to subject themselves to these jobs. I only know CA firefighting and EMS and by no means am I an expert but EMS companies are TERRIBLE in how they treat their employees besides low wages. Also firefighting is really difficult to get into, you need to have quite a bit of certs and experience to even be seriously considered for some departments. Then you have some departments that have issues with hazing or treating their probies like hot garbage and at the same time expect them to have the knowledge of a 25yr veteran all in the probie year. It’s like you said in one of the earlier videos “ a firefighters first year should be the best year of his life not the worst”.
Well said
Anything done to a probie should be in good fun. You need to have thick skin in the fire service and there’s nothing wrong with helping them develop that but with that said there’s a big difference between good natured fun having them do some extra station chores stuff like that and just being an asshole to them. I’ve always told probies that they only need to worry if the crew stops messing with you (good natured team building and skills building) as if they’re not messing with you then you’re most likely not cutting it. Again there’s a difference between breaking in the new guy and being an asshole. When I was new there was some ball busting but there was a lot of celebration on the important firsts.
I used to be an EMT. Started out making 12.50. Paramedics were 16/hr. After 2 year i was making like 13.20. I quit and 2 years later im making 28 an hour at a factory job. I enjoy this more. People kept quitting and instead of management fixing the problems that caused people to quit, they shamed those who stayed for not picking up extra shifts. Im so glad i left EMS
Spot on report. I was a Firefighter/EMT in a rural community and ran just over 200 - 911 calls and 100+ long distance transfers (80+miles one way)a year. Doesn't seem bad, but I also worked 50-60 hours a week in a furniture factory and had a family to raise. I eventually crushed my shoulder at a training and had to get done. Good to do when you are young, strong as a bull and about as smart as one, Not so much when you are getting older. Probably going to get worse before it gets better.
I think the combination of crappy wages, little time, bad treatment from politicians and burnout probably contribute to the shortage. For example: if someone working overtime can barely put food on the table, they won't be able to volunteer.
10 years on the job, college degree, cross-trained between fire/ems/rescue/hazmat, and I was capped at $13.50/hr. I left to do Uber 4 years ago making about $25/hr. Used that money to go to nursing school….beat the system!
Ummm you should make a how to be sooooo successful! Way to not so humble brag
Now Uber is no good.
I love when people say you need to do the job for the meaning of it rather than the pay and benefits. But to be willing to wake up three or four times in the middle of the night for hour long stretches or working warehouse fires on an hour and a half of sleep by 1am, it's just a completely different job than Walmart or Target. Let alone being capable of doing that while still performing to the top degree.
Some things can be drastically changed, especially when the county sheriff's in my area make double than me at the fire house; especially when half of them don't have a degree or prior schooling.
I tell every kid that tells me they want to be a firefighter either do it for free or for what you're worth, don't settle for in between because that's worse than no pay.
HI FirefighterNOW,
I am 14 and just became a junior firefighter at my local volunteer department. I am still getting to know people and learning the basics but so far it has been very fun. If i still enjoy it in the future I plan to stay at a volunteer station and have another job to make money. I want to thank you for all of the advice it has helped me so much. I hope the shortage of EMS and Firefighters will end soon.
Keep up the great content!
hi my name is maor zohar 19 y/o
from israel at this age we have mandatory milltary service and some of us can choose if they want to join the army or doing nationtal service i choosed the second option and got the previllage to become a firefighter and wow IM DAMN JELOUS that you started at this age
keep it up i dont know you and still have much respcet for you
It's awesome you want to pursue a wonderful career in the fire service, but I have to tell ya, I am a paramedic for a company in Cali, and I could only go for a couple years before I had to leave, the pay is awful everywhere Sadly, if this is something you want to pursue, go for it! Just be prepared ok?
Awesome to hear! I did the same thing in school and I'm 36 now and have loved every minute of it. Share the experience and recruit some friends in! It's a great gig for helping your community.
i hope you get smarter kid as of now you dont seem to bright
Hey bro I’m in the same boat as you right now I’m a junior firefighter in a town near me, it’s awesome I love it. And I know you will too. Except I’m 16. And I’ve been with that department a little near a year. Plan to go to the academy after highschool. Good luck to you bro.
Interesting, I applied at 29 year old. I've been blessed to work for myself since I was 23 year old. I have a college degree. I was told I wasn't qualified and need more life experience. I'm a self starter and self motivated. They hire a few 21 year old.. Thank goodness they didn't hire me. My business has taken off and I make 3 to 4 times what they pay firefighters.. I am now 34, and happy with my life decisions. I'm grateful for everyone who makes that sacrifice to keep us safe.
Spot on. Our Village just approved a 17% increase. Now, we’re in-line with your median stat. Nobody does this for the money. Most Paramedic/Firefighters I know work multiple departments or clinical settings on their non duty days. We all do this because we want to serve…well, at least initially.
How about most of these bigger departments in the cities like particularly the FDNY, Chicago, fire department, LAFD, etc. Get rid of their stupid ass age limit on becoming a fire fighter because it shouldn’t matter how freaking old you are if you can pass the test and meet the standards what the hell is the difference?
Seattle pays 82k starting salary and after 1.5 years you will be clearing 100k, not to mention added salary benefits for specialized training. If any ones trying make some good money as a firefighter, move to Seattle.
Bringing in my Application for my Local Volunteer Fire Department Monday Coming up, I Hope to be a Career Firefighter soon, Your content is Pure Gold man. I binge watch your videos before going to bed, at the gym, and literally all through out the day. Keep it up man.
minimum $30 an hour for ALL PUBLIC SAFTY personel. this includes FF, EMTS, Police officers, ect
Good to see you posting again Mike. Your videos definitely have been missed. Keep them coming brother.
The biggest issues we've had is no one at my department can afford to live the area that we service. Unless you've been there for 20 years. Everyone commutes at least 30 minutes or longer because of the housing being astronomical now. And even then, you can't even afford to rent an apartment by yourself. So the turn over is extremely high at the 1 year mark. You can't get young guys to move here for the job if they can't even live in the area. I myself drive an hour to work. Guys also have families that they can't support off of 50k a year before taxes with the current cost of living.
The second part is the generational gap. Guys that are getting hired have never even folded laundry or even used a dish washer. All they know is social media and technology. Needless to say they also quit because they don't fit in well with guys that have a lot of time in the fire service. It seems like it's just a dying trade with guys like Mike here trying to keep it alive. The US as a whole is in need of a giant culture change in my opinion.
I pray the culture change comes sooner than later. Our firefighters/ems workers NEED to be more appreciated
Glad to see that the media is starting to look at a very big problem. I am a chief of a pay volunteer department, and we have 17 guys and out of that maybe 5-8 make calls. The states and cities need to start helping and find out a way to get people to do these jobs. We are all getting older and some day we look to retire, but if nobody is joining nobody is going to be taking our spots. We make little to nothing in pay. I as the chief make $24 an hour only on calls. Most of my guys only make $15-$17 an hour. I tell my board all the time (way would they want to leave their $30 an hour job to come bust their ass for $15-$17 an hour). I get told it is what it is.
Departments arent paying livable wages
Most of us work a decent amount of OT to make a decent amount of money a year...
Crappy "Leadership"
Stuck in old fireman ways and not open to change and ideals.....
We start new medics at $70k/yr and we are still short 15% of full staffing.
Y'all have mandates?
As an EMS Paramedic at a hospital based service we burn through so many people. The first 25 years they had 500 EMTs & Medics that had worked there. 6 years later they had they had 1000. Today they have gone through 2500 EMTs total in 40 years. Staff don’t stay . I went on to get my RN & left EMS.
I'd love to be an EMT, and covid changed my life for the better because it made me have to start over. I was starting my education over so I wanted to either become a Paramedic or a Registered Nurse. Kansas requires all RN applications to have a CNA license to enter the RN program and all Paramedic students must have an EMT-B. Well, CNA was a month so I did that first and worked for a total of 4 months at 2 facilities and quit. Pay was $1200 every two weeks. But then I looked at the local EMT job which is $13.50 an hour and absolutely no way I would waste my time enrolling into an EMT program for such little pay. I did my Certified Veterinary Assistant program and the pay $15.50 and I'm doing CDL-A trucking school and Welding School at the same time. The jobs for both CDL and Welding industries around my area are starting at $20-25 for both and the schooling doesn't require that much studying at all. Registered Nurses definitely make good money, but the environment is so toxic with too many female Nurses abusing CNA's that I don't want to be in that childish environment. Paramedics around here are making $20 an hour, so to get an EMTB, then do all of my prereqs and then apply to the Paramedic Program would be 3.5 years of school just for $20 an hour. No way!
What do you do now instead?
I am from Melbourne Australia, we just like most places round the world are having a health care crisis. It takes 3 years to train as a paramedic here. 3 years to also become a nurse. The state government has introduced a plan to pay off 400 nursing student fees, literally making it free to learn nursing in this state for 400 potential new health care workers.
3 years for paramedics!! Wtf… 9 months for EMT-Basic… plus 1 year for paramedics..
They make paramedics get Bachelors degrees there and most degree plans are 3 years long. Degrees like engineering are 4 yrs long
Am I the only one convinced that the EMS worker shortage is largely due to a reason that no one wants to talk about? The rampant abuse of the emergency ambulance system has driven me away. I don’t think anyone went to EMT school or paramedic school so they could take Johnny to the hospital at 3am because his tummy has been hurting for 12 hours or take Thelma from the nursing home to the ER because of abnormal lab work from 10 hours ago. This is 80% of what EMS does, and even with acceptable wages, I’m hard pressed to accept that people will EVER line up for this work like they did when people respected the sanctity of calling 911.
My system routine fails to reach urgently unwell patients in a timely manner (or sometimes at all) because of the inundation of service requests based solely on entitlement, abuse, and laziness.
That’s what has me holding back from going into firefighting/ems is the abuse of the 911 system.
Nail on the head.
I don’t agree with this. That’s all of medicine regardless if you’re a doc or an EMT, it’s too difficult to get healthcare so people rely on emergency services. If you didn’t know that then that’s on you. Its something we all complain about but I know very very few emergency workers that want to leave because of non-emergency calls.
This just really made me think about my EMS system. We work in a really dangerous urban area with no vests and 2 trucks for the town. Our supervisor had to lock himself in the back room of a residence on a cardiac arrest while the husband tried to break down the door with two knives in his hands. We got there before the police department who didn’t even put him in custody for like 20-24 bucks an hour. Make it make sense.
I’ve taken the written test for the fire department where I’m from twice and there are consistently more than 500 applicants competing for 12-15 spots.
And those 12-15 probably go to minorities or veterans.
Australian paramedic here; When I applied there were 3,500 applicants for 48 positions. We did our written, maths and spatial relations tests and the top 100 went through to the next step which was physical/dexterity tests, criminal and driver history check and psych evaluation. To put it another way, they passed the top 2.8% based on scores on your tests. Pretty brutal. Of those 48, the top 24 got appointed to stations of their first choice. The next 24 got their first preference if available or their second choice which might be a station 200 miles away. Our ambulance service covers a state 2.5 times bigger than Texas.
Come to south Florida. The pay for a starting fire/medic on probation is north of 70k for most departments. Most are transport and you will be busy, depending on where you work. Once you credential and get off probation, you can be making 80k
Education of the general public on what constitutes a true medical emergency would help on the call volume.
Also applies to Skilled Nursing facilities who either call for everything or wait until patient is circling the drain.
My father was a firefighter for 20 years and seeing what it did to him put it much lower on my personal list of occupations
Cancer?
As a part time fireman who makes less than the highschoolers flipping burgers, this resonated with me. We are an anomaly in that my dept doesn’t run medical, but in a city that is BOOMING in growth with a rising call volume, I hope my city council sees this video soon and opens up more full time positions that actually pay worth a damn.
Stop expecting firefighters to be paramedics, yet pay them one wage for doing both roles. We don’t expect paramedics to be firefighters, so why are we expecting our firefighters to also be paramedics. We have hundreds of billions of dollars to spend fighting proxy wars all over the globe but will nickle and dime looking after our own citizens. 🤷🏽♂️
Just passed my national registry on Friday first try! Now I’ve got 12 weeks of my part time ff academy till completion, application was already picked up just waiting for more certs =) good time to try and join
I understand this completely I been a volunteer firefighter for 17 yrs at this time we have a total of maybe 10 volunteers and out that most of time we have 3 maybe 4 show up proud firefighter
Appreciatecha!
Work in a central florida fire department we get paid $15 as ff/emt, McDonalds workers get paid more money than us
OCFRD in Central FL has been on a hiring binge for both certified and non certified FF's. They are literally paying civilians who pass the fireteam and cpat to get trained and certified on the dept.'s dime (meaning the dept. Is paying for the training and paying the new probies on top of it) just so they can fill in spots
How well I know I live in Central Florida and used to be a member of that agency. They are still not on top of the food chain far as as money.
And what’s wrong with the dept paying to train new members? That’s the biggest issue with finding new staff, most departments want prospective FF’s to be already certified FF’s and have their paramedic license before applying, which is becoming increasingly financially unaffordable to lots of people.
Nothing wrong with paying them at all, wish I had that option! But you will see down the road there are Departments that pay more that look for exprienced people, those guys that went thru that type of program, will jump ship after their training contract is up and go for the money or stay till vest and leave.
As they should be. They should pay for the training and time spent to train. No one in this economy can afford to work for free. Especially in Florida of all places. I lived in Tampa for a time, and was outpriced of the area due to rising rents. Nowhere is cheap. Companies need to get with the times and realize paid training is the way forward.
The fire service is reaching a critical point in todays time. The pay, the benefits, the flexibility, and the respect of lawmakers and our government constitute to this crisis.
Most take the job KNOWING the pay won’t be there but that can only last so long. Like the military, the fire service/EMS needs pay increase. It’s beyond “unions” it needs national attention. So where do we go from here?
Fair wages, finical compensation, tax breaks, etc. Additionally what about volunteers?
Volunteers are a HUGE resource that can be utilized. A lot of people care about their community and may just lack knowledge how they can support. Community outreach to find that percentage of individuals who can be taught to become a firefighter or work in EMS capacity. Provide incentives for these folks as well.
Thank you for pushing this agenda and let’s hope 2023 can get a spotlight on this and make positive changes.
We are a pay on call department with 3 stations in are city . Less than 30 men and women staffed between the 3 , with no med. We haven't experienced some of the same issues as some of the other larger city's, we try to be as involved in the community as possible and when the pages go out you can get 2 to 10 guys responding that still love this career even though there tired and could be at home
I am a volunteer firefighter but I was a career police officer I started making 17,000 a year and like some has said fast food workers was making more than me I didn’t do it for the money I love being a first responder and trying to help
Seattle area has great pay and affordable housing if you are willing to commute a little 45min or so. Senior FF pay is around 110k per year and entry level is about 80k. Plenty of OT opportunities. My department runs about 7500 calls per year out of 3 stations. Decently busy but not crazy.
I once thought about doing some sort of firefighter jobs where I live in the People's Republic of Commiefornia.
One glance at the training required, plus the gigantic pool of applicants with few open positions immediately had me reconsider such a thought.
Chicago suburb, Aurora Township is offering starting pay of $65k for medics and can’t find anyone. Local EMS system only offers one medic class per year. Service population of 405k. EMS System serves 15 local departments. 2022 class started with 27 students and only about half were able to pass the National exam (Illinois Dept of Health refuses to go back to having their own exam)
Gotta say that NREMT is something else
I’m a 3yr fire/medic in the metro Detroit area on a IAFF department. The staffing shortages are finally getting noticed here by department heads.Surrounding departments are using things like lateral pay or waiving cpat requirements to try to attract people from other departments. The average wage around here for firefighter are 45k start 70k topped out but it seems like most departments are negotiating near double digit raises in their contracts this past year. Also hourly wage isn’t a good comparison due to us being 48, 50.4, 54 or 56 hour salary.
I work for one of the higher paying EMS agencies in my area, and the money still isn't great. When you consider the amount of IFTs we have to do to make that money because Medicare and private insurance pays next to nothing for ambulance service, it almost doesn't feel like getting my EMT cert was the right move.
I’ve been applying and getting myself ready. I had one interview and I wasn’t selected but I’m still trying
thank you for this
What I am seeing is the younger generation that is getting into our trade, is they are getting out as soon as they are vested in the retirement program (which is usually 6 to 10 years) and no playing for the duration 20+ years like us old guys and recruitment is down for the bigger agencies that pay the best. If that that tells anything. The biggest recruitment for the Fire Departments was the trade center tragedy after that recruitment peaked all over the country everybody wanted to be a Fireman.
It'd be nice to be above poverty level as a career FF. My wife is in state level emergency management and I'm a career FF and together we make enough to pay the mortgage, car payment, keep food in the pantry, and that's about it. And we're the lucky ones.
I was a Paramedic in the 90's. The pay sucks bad and the work is hard.
That's news to me because as a cadet, every full timer kept preaching that paramedic was where the money was at.
@@lon6boardlord haha, there's no money in it.
The pay is better but the work still sucks. Ha
@@lon6boardlord It just depends on where you go man, and a lot of departments pay so that you have to work yourself to death to make ends meet. Where I work, I make $24/hour for a busy 911 service as an AEMT. A paramedic here starts out at like $32/hour. However, an hour down the road from my service, the same level of provider makes like $18/hour-$22/hour.
We had a for profit amblance service that went to my city begging them to start running ambulances because they are so shorthanded. All the firefighter in my city are paramedics
Lockport, Ny
I’m a volunteer ff in Nj in a pretty busy dept and we are having a hard time finding people
It all depends on our dept and city. This is my depts current openings for transport medics, it ends up being more once you include the OT, holiday pay, floating holiday etc. As a fighter fighter medic we’re paid more than the civilian transport medics and E’s.
Transportation Paramedic 56-hour (24 hour shift):
➡ Minimum: $18.71/hour - $62,266.88 annual base pay
➡ Maximum: $26.19/hour - $87,160.32 annual base pay
I'm a 38 year paid and volunteer firefighter, this has been a process underway for many many years, coupled with COVID nonsense, and violence increasing this is not surprising
It's different up here in ontario Canada , career firefighters are usually making over 100 000 a year canadian, vollunteers are paid on call the department i double hat at is 24 a hour minimum of 2 hour per call even for a Medical call. A friend of mine full time EMS is making around 80 000 a year. I know there are housing cost differences and cost of living differences but they are generally well paying careers here.
Yooo that’s crazy. I know you guys have larger taxes but still that’s gonna be a huge take home.
Yup, I just started in EMS and I’m on $70,000 CAD a year, which includes about 20 hours O/T a month. The volly Fire dept I’m on pay $20 an hour for fire calls, we don’t get paid for training or meetings.
in my county department medics are mistreated so much (in the sense of mandatory overtime / being overworked at busy stations) that some medics are willing to give up their patch just to become a regular EMT
I think pay is only half of the problem. I've put my time in working a Pay-On-Call Fire/ALS department were we went from 300 calls a year back in the 90's to 1200 a year now. People are living longer and their families don't want to help them because of the inconvenience to their life, so they have them call 911 even if it is just a lift assist. Volunteers and Pay-On-Calls have fulltime jobs on top of fire/EMS and come from home or work when the tones go off and today's person is busy and can't give up the time we could back then. Now cities have to look at the future to see if they can afford fulltime staff to get the ambulances and fire trucks out the door or shut down their fire department and hope their neighboring city still has staffing.
That is strange. I graduated the academy in 2021 and I have been looking for work ever since. I Just finished my fourth board interview yesterday and I am Waiting on the results. Definitely the hardest job to get into, without a doubt. Not sure what they are looking for, especially when they need people. What’s even more fun is if I’m hired I have to do the academy again. Groovy.
The most consistently dangerous thing we did was respond to calls…..and that includes being a swat medic. I was significantly less afraid of the burning building or amped up meth head than I was he rush hour commuters talking on their phones. In fact it made me so angry I often called my friends while driving code just to share my anger with them in real time. Seriously though, if they added a “bodily fluids pay addendum” I’d probably go back…then I could retire early.
this video was eye opening...and very surprising.
100% true. I drove by a Panda Express yesterday advertising for different jobs… the lowest-paying one was $25k more than I make a year with the highest being over double.
I was going to do structure for my city until I seen it was for $12/hr and fast food was starting at 13/14. Chief (grew up with his son) told me they had SEVEN total firefighters for the city and were getting some from cities 45-60 mins over where they were getting $4 more than our city. Oh, I also could’ve been a bud tender at the dispo for $15 lmao. You can’t expect people, especially nowadays to do hard work for less money.
I'm a career Firefighter, my department is struggling. We are an entire shift short of people currently. ISO just preformed their assessment. It takes 2+ years of school to finish all the requirements to get past probationary. We make very little money. Our city council does not see a problem.
Oh I belive this, a couple of months ago for a week there was no EMS service in my town.
Great video with good information. One thing that was lost is that Covid decimated the fire and EMS industry. Pre -Covid the jobs posted on the state website were around 20-30 jobs state wide. We counted recently and there are 164 most requesting paramedic certification. In some cases the fire certification is not even required just that you are a paramedic.
I'm going into firefighting as a career, and I started my internship with a department that I'm told pays their entry-levels $50/hr. This department doesn't require Paramedic certs, but several workers are up to that level. While I know some cities/townships may not have such extravagant funding, it blew my mind, especially since the department itself only responds to the EMR level. The officer that told me the starting pay mistook my shock for disappointment, saying something to the effect of "I know it's not that much, but it goes up as you get promoted, and you can always switch departments mid-career if it doesn't work for you." I'm going through school with a part-time job at $11.25/hr, so it's quite the positive difference.
where on gods green earth is this department and are they hiring?
Wtf? Lol
bullshit
I'm 100% positive you misheard him and he actually said "$15".
I live in Converse Tx. Our town is approximately 28,000 people. All fire fighters are Paramedics also. I never thought in my years as a FF that I would see us wear Swat helmets, bullet prof vest to certain area of our small town. I saw this in DC and it’s next here that the driver/operator will have to wear a side arm to protect the equipment (drugs etc ) on the Mobile Intensive Care Treatment Unit. However you are born to help others, no job better than Fireman/Paramedic
I’m a student firefighter, I work 2 on 4 off while doing full time school and I’m required to continue to grow more in ems now, I make 11$ an hour and McDonald’s right down the block makes 15 an hour
I am a former Volunteer fire department EMS captain from Long Island now living in Florida.
Put plans together to start a volunteer rescue squad.
They need to pay more! Luckily I recently got picked up in an area where the pay is good!
My net pay as a private was $26,000 for 2022. Small town. Small department. We have 2 stations and 1 man at each station. So I am a private on paper, but on call I am the private, driver, captain, and sometimes even IC.
All of you out there who volunteer, you are amazing.
What's the population? I think for two stations, just 2 people on shift is crazy. Should have at least 4.
@@JamesKovacs Around 2200. On low priority calls we’ll just respond with one man and an engine, but for high priority stuff both men will respond.
@@The-mb8ui First Responder, BLS, or ALS?
@@JamesKovacs BLS
@@The-mb8ui Not bad. Very surprising to have staffing for just 2200 people. I'm a paid on-call BLS for a township in Michigan with about 15,000 or so people. We get about 900 calls per year. Congrats on grabbing that job though
As a firefighter/EMT I can honestly say it’s all the requirements needed to even GET what you need to even just APPLY for a job. Not to mention all the CEUS you must maintain just to keep a job, and for what? $15 bucks an hour.
Exactly . Too much bs
I’m a career firefighter at a department in North Carolina, at my full time department we just got a pay bump that put me at $12 a hour I also work at a part time department that I also volunteer for and our pay there is $15 a hour. It sucks on pay and it has hurt us on retaining people in the last year we have lost 10 people that left to go into a different field of work or to another department. Back a few years ago it was hard to get hired on but now it’s become easy, but it also comes with inexperience in newer firefighters or a lot more lazy firefighters. It’s sad to see what’s happening.
From an outside that was interested in these careers: the pay @ benefits was pretty weak compared to enlisted military benefits, which doesn't require a degree and even pays for your core training, such as putting you through their fire academy and basic training.
Anywhere between $30 and $40 an hour. Nurses are making that much and get to be in the safety of a building with security nearby. We are on the street responding with vehicles, going into unsecured situations, often without police, and make entry into extremely hazardous conditions. They may have the schooling, but we have hazards in many situations.
I've been a paramedic in Canada for 20+ years. My salary is currently $46+/hr not including ot or shift premiums. We have a healthy pension, full employer paid benefits package as well. It's unfortunate my brother's and sisters south of the border don't receive the same compensation.
Medford, Oregon had two positions become available a few years ago, and they had over 5,000 applicants. One of those positions was given to a firefighter from Grants Pass, so Grants Pass had to hire a firefighter themselves, and I am sure they had the same 5,000 applicants. So, where is this shortage?
In Thailand 90 % of EMS is volunteer the volunteers buy everything they use including their Ambulances yet they never complain and there is no shortage of responders it's when ALS level that there are issues as EMS foundations do not provide it only Hospitals provide ALS services.
$3.35 an hour, EMT/FF 1982. Paramedic/FF/Lieutenant $4.41 an hour 1987. There's always been a shortage.
Do you have any videos for ride along/ Jr. Firefighters? Or anything for volunteers? If not can you make some please? I'm kind of lost when it comes to my way around the firehouse as a ride along
I worked at a part time department last year. We made $15 an hour in the western part of Washington state. Average cost of living is ~$1,300/mo NOT including rent. You have to work 120 hours a month just to cover that, let alone if you have rent then you better be working a well paying second job. The saving grace was that we were so understaffed that the OT available was great. Some weeks you were able to work a 72-96 hour shift.
The trends in this video are not just an American phenomenon. In Germany, we see the exact same thing happening, maybe not quite as extreme yet, but the health care and emergency services sector are struggling more and more to fill vacancies.
Also, increasing levels of violence against first responders are a major concern, here.
Some mega-trends are the same all over the West: the boomer generation getting older, requiring more health care and a gap of young people to fill the demand for labor across industries.
EVERY day I hear fire departments paged to EMS calls and no ambulance is available at the time of the call. Makes me wonder how long before it is going to cost a life. Was on a call a long time ago now where waiting on the ambo for around an hour cost the gal her life. Sad part with that call one of the oncall medics was out on a vol department with a grass fire so she did not go in to make the call. We had to watch an ambulance drive by with it's patient, wait for them to get to the hospital in the next town and drop that one off and come back to our town to get our patient
this is very interesting because in my county where i volunteer in we have both career 24/7 paid personnel that we work alongside with. i’m not sure the specific pay and benefits but when talking to one of the senior paramedics he’s making anywhere from $90k-110k every year. i think it’s very sad that certain departments don’t have the luxury of being paid at least minimum wage for a job that can kill you. what does your department pay if pat at all?
Bet that 90 to 110 is with Overtime not straight time
$0
I'm a career FF/AEMT, we run about 2,200 calls and transfers a year. I've been full time now for 2 years. My pay is $20/hr on duty and $3.35/hr if I pick up extra shifts from home.
Starting off/probationary period for ff/emt at least $100,000 a year and obviously more with the more experience/seniority you have. EMS around the starting off as well along with stricter law surrounding the safety of first responders.
Yea I was a volunteer for the longest time in the rural areas. I just now got into a larger career department in the city and going to cap at 84k for fourth year. Anyone going into fire, know that to make good money you will need to work in wealthier communities or thriving metropolitan areas.
Here in central California my base 2 day a week schedule being a ff/medic is 160k without ot
When I first started as a firefighter/emt unlicensed I was getting paid 14 and change an hour. Now coming back as a AEMT and EMS Specialist meaning I do zero fire and only ems I make 21 and change an hour. Apparently I make more than my old Lt. Who has been there much longer and is the same ems license as me. So I'd say pay is definitely low.
Within the field of first responders, we must make sure we remember to treat one another with dignity and make sure we all feel included, welcomed and respected as part of one big team. We are preserving the integrity of our nation, and no one wants to feel like they constantly need to defend themselves against their own comrades as they do so.
Deal with your fellow first responders face-to-face about any issues, and do so as someone trying to help.
Strengthen our team.
I work for a major Midwest fire department, the other day on the box my medic looked at the Chick-fil-A billboard, and said hey you could get a hell of a raise pulse benefits. Chick-fil-A paying 25 an hour 😂
I think the most bizarre thing to me is that I can’t even get any of my friends to join. Just no interest whatsoever. I’m a volly myself and I have good friends who both have the athleticism and really good jobs with the free time and money to do it; however, anytime I bring it up I’m looked at as if I have two heads.
Even when I talk about the additional things that I am interested in joining, like the county rescue dive team, they try to discourage me from joining. I don’t get it.
We’re all in our twenties too so it’s not like we’re old men lol.
It's because the social media culture doesn't want anyone to work for anything anymore. It's not looked at as "cool" but keep it up brother we need more people like you out there getting after it, especially in the volunteer service
I was in the same position as you and the responses I get are “I’m not trying to work for free” as if playing video games all day pays you. Or I get “I don’t think my mental health could handle that”
It’s simple, your friends are weak minded, self centered, and have no ambition. If you have the passion and drive to do something, go for it. You don’t need to feel any sense of approval from your friends to be successful.
@@CornFed_3 I’m going to continue focusing on fire for now but will join the dive team when I’m more confident in my swimming abilities.