I spent quiet some time in the appliance repair field before it had a sudden collapse around the turn of the millennium. We became a disposable society where people didn’t fix their appliances and just decided to throw them away. Appliance manufacturers also helped promote this by really jacking up the price on repair parts. To give an idea of how bad it is, my parts supply house had about 40 employees in 2,000. By 2003 it was down to 7.

Now I wonder if the field might not make a comeback when you see news like Whirlpool cutting 5,000 jobs. Whirlpool is the largest manufacturer of appliances in the nation. A lot of appliance brands you buy are actually made by Whirlpool. So if the industry is hitting them this hard, then you can expect to see it happen to the other manufacturers out there.