Heck, stay within our own area of expertise real estate. Not sure about other states, but in Michigan to become a real estate agent requires a 40 hour class that can now be taken online, in probably a faction of that time, followed by a State test that you are given something like three hours to finish and my wife and I were out of the testing center in about 45 minutes. Now the newly licensed agent can stumble into a low end deal of around $100,000 with a 6% commission. Having just one side of the deal and doing a 50/50 split with the broker, the new agent will make $1,500 for maybe 10 hours of direct work spread over several weeks. Additionally, because they are working for a broker they would have office space, some sort of clerical help, copy machine, office printer, land line for telephone calls, supplies, internet, etc. provided.
On the other hand the appraiser (Certified Residential) has more than 250 hours of class time along including continuing education while training, 2,500 hours or more of documented experience, and a 4 to 6 hour test that takes the majority of the time allocated. All the while making $450+/-, with at least 6-8 hours in producing a credible report within a 48 hour period. To say nothing of revision request, appraisal reviews, comp questions, title questions, status updates, comp pictures, etc. The appraiser is either paying for their office space or working from home, buying computers, printers, software, supplies, phones charges, internet, portal fees, E & O insurance, record retention, much more expensive licensing (at least in Michigan), etc.
The one with the least amount of training and experience, lower expenses, lower liability, most likely the least amount of actual productive time involved, etc. makes $150 per hour, while the appraiser is lucky to make $45 per hour gross. I fully understand that appraisers are involved in far more deals than any one particular real estate agent, but still. I always love it when I prepare a fairly simple and straight forward commercial appraisal charging between $1,250 and $1,750 and the client and sometimes the real estate agent will comment about the size of the fee. My response is my fee is 1% or less of the entire deal, while the real estate commission was 6% +/-, the lender charges points, commitment fee, processing fee, etc., the title company gets all of their fees, the governmental unit gets their recording and transfer fees, the surveyor gets paid, well and septic inspections, god forbid an environmental inspection or a BEA is required, on and on and on. With the exception of the title company and possibly the environmental folks, guess who carries the greatest liability.
For the last couple of years I have been trying to gross around $75 an hour on most reports, but I am slowly moving that upwards and if I loose some business so be it. I work roughly three to five County area and am the only person actively doing commercial work in my County, just one other person doing any type of commercial work in the County south of me, no one in the County to the north or southeast and one active in the County to the east. So anyone accepting an assignment in my core service area is coming from several Counties and probably 50+ miles away and needs to cover travel, MLS access, market research, etc. Before anyone questions it my mentor is a licensed CG and reviews and signs all of my reports. Several years ago he decided to retire from active appraising and refers any request he receives to me.
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If the supply of auto technicians is low relative to demand, and the supply of appraisers (CG in your example - I'm guessing CR is inferior to CG?) is high relative to demand, my suspicion is that the auto technician will make more money... just because your credential cost a lot of $ and time does not necessarily translate into it being a profitable line of work...