This is a funny thread. Recently, we had a posting which contrasted Pay:Glamour - declaring pilot to be "high pay, high glamour". Bear with me a moment while I tie the decline of the profession and SJS into this thread.
There is still a non-pilot subculture which believes in the lies of glamour. Given the beacon of a high glamour job, and the potential that the glamour one obtains can be used to pick up women, among other excellent possibilities, we then generate the PFT phenomenon. Young males will bear any burden to be allowed to don classic Ray-Bans, wear a big watch, and shout out, from the cockpit, (like Leo deC in Titanic), "I'm the Pilot King of the Wooorrrllld!"
The system has generated an overly large herd of Ray-Ban wearing young male pilots. Since our markets are supply and demand, management can now easily drive down pay to food-stamp levels. Yet, since there is still a glamour associated with the profession, the supply never dries up. There is a steady flow of youngsters with SJS and the money for PFT.
By the time the SJS victim realizes that women simply laugh at him, and the glamour is a facade readily promoted by the industry, it is too late... he has no other skills beyond gear slinging, so he is stuck.
The answer is to somehow eliminate the glamour aspect of the job. Skilled trades like a plumber have zero glamour... the supply of willing candidates is smaller, driving wages up. I have no doubt that plumbers pick up more chicks than pilots, as they are usually friendlier and less egotistical.
