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Posted on 10/12/2026 7:18:14 AM PDT by TheDon
Electricians, welders and HVAC technicians are commanding six-figure salaries as companies poach workers from rivals
Intense demand for workers in the skilled trades is leading U.S. companies to ramp up training programs to expand their workforces and to poach workers from other companies to fill vitally needed positions.
Mike Rowe, CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, which helps the next generation get training in the skilled trades, told FOX Business that it's "been very surreal for me to watch the skilled trades come back into something like favor."
"I don't want to overstate it, but I can tell you that not a week goes by that I don't hear from the CEO of some consequential company or some industry leader who is straight up freaking out over the barriers to recruiting," Rowe said, adding that many large U.S. companies are establishing their own training programs to attract workers to the skilled trades.
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"To me, the most compelling stat is five-in-two: every year, when five tradesmen leave the workforce, two replace them. It's been that way for 12 years, so the math has caught up to us," Rowe added.
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(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
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This just shows one how ignorant management (CEOs, etc.) and “guidance counselors” in “schools” are.
freaking out over the barriers to recruiting,” Rowe said, adding that many large U.S. companies are establishing their own training programs to attract workers to the skilled trades.
...
But it does raise a question as to what the barriers are?
Too much govt regulation is one. We are told the regulations make us safe. But was is the NET results of all the regulations?
They can't import cheap labor or 3rd world tech labor anymore so it's time STOP WOKE AIR HEAD 'TEACHERS' from teaching 'toxic masculinity, weirdo pronouns', socialist crap etc... bring back shop classes, and create grown up American school cultures.
“To me, the most compelling stat is five-in-two: every year, when five tradesmen leave the workforce, two replace them. It’s been that way for 12 years, so the math has caught up to us,” Rowe added.
I blame the digital age for a lot of that. Not only does the youth nowadays not know to change a flat tire on a car or drive a stick shift there’s been a trend for a while that they don’t even want to learn to drive at all.
All they know is the internet and social media.
I doubt kids like that are gonna be interested in working with their hands.
Much of the problem can be traced back to George W. Bush and his idiotic “No Child Left Behind” program. NCLB tested for math and English, but not the trades. And woe to the high school that scored low on those tests.
So many schools eliminated their trades classes and shoved those kids into advanced math and English classes - classes that the trades kids neither liked nor needed.
That’s exactly what happened in the high school where I taught. It’s a national disgrace.
I WILL ADD:
THE “EDUCATION” A KID GETS TODAY IS A BLOCKADE TO LEARNING A TRADE BEFORE THEY EVEN REACH 18.
BY GRADE 5, THEY ARE ALREADY BEHIND THE 8-BALL.
I WILL ADD:
THE “EDUCATION” A KID GETS TODAY IS A BLOCKADE TO LEARNING A TRADE BEFORE THEY EVEN REACH 18.
BY GRADE 5, THEY ARE ALREADY BEHIND THE 8-BALL.
Disney is probably worse than Microsoft and Adobe combined .......
I have said for decades that large American companies have to go back to the days when they trained their own workers. Heck — I’m old enough to remember going to engineering school and having an adjunct professor who got his master’s degree in mechanical engineering from GMI — the General Motors Institute.
But if you talk to one of them about this. If you isolate one of them, you sit them down rationally, and you talk to them about the low IQ’s and the dumb behavior and the bad decisions. Right away they start talking about education.
That’s the big answer to everything. Education. They say “We need more money for education. We need more books. More teachers. More classrooms. More schools. We need more testing for the kids”. You say to them, “Well, you know, we’ve tried all of that and the kids still can’t pass the tests”. They say, “Don’t you worry about that. We’re going to lower the passing grades”.
And that’s what they do in a lot of these schools now. They lower the passing grades so more kids can pass. More kids pass, the school looks good, everybody’s happy, the IQ of the country slips another two or three points and pretty soon all you’ll need to get into college is a f_____g pencil. Got a pencil? Get the f___ in there, it’s Physics.
Then everyone wonders why 17 other countries graduate more scientists than we do. “EDUCAATION”. Politicians know that word. They USE it on you. Politicians have traditionally hidden behind three things, the flag, the Bible and children. “No child left behind. No child left behind.” Oh, really? Well, it wasn’t long ago you were talking about giving kids a head start. Head start. Left behind. Someone is losing f_____g ground here.
-George Carlin
I don’t see any barriers mentioned other than supply and demand. If these CEOs don’t understand supply and demand, they shouldn’t be CEOs.
For years, parents and children were fed the idiocy that in order to have some life, you must go to college.
So instead of earning honest money by working in the fields everybody needs, they end up with lots of college debts and maybe some useless degree. Many have not even finished college and just wasted lots of money and part of their life!
I don’t see any barriers mentioned other than supply and demand. If these CEOs don’t understand supply and demand, they shouldn’t be CEOs.
I don’t see any barriers mentioned other than supply and demand. If these CEOs don’t understand supply and demand, they shouldn’t be CEOs.
There has been such a big push to go to college. Stats were always offered that college grads make more money than non college grads. Somehow, a career in the trades seems to have been almost looked down upon. Now it’s time to recognize the worth of people who can work with their hands to build and fix things.
Maybe some colleges should introduce trade training and degrees and stop worthless degrees with no marketable skills?
I learned a LOT from electricians. Those were the guys who made that plant run and it was a gas working with them. They knew who made the reliable and accurate sensors, They knew more about the operational processes than anyone else in the plant because they knew the controls. They did the PLC programming, they kept the office computers working, they knew the line machinery as well as any of the mechanics. They were indispenisble.
One thing that worries me about AI in that environment is that they may no longer have to do that programming. That means they won't know as much about how it works. There is no replacement for that kind of knowledge. Industrial processes and equipment are too specific to hire people like that off the street or from a competitor. Our best electricians came from the Navy, particularly aircraft carrier and submarine technicians.
My grandson is an electrician in the SF Bay area.
“ ‘freaking out’ over barriers”
I read the article. No mention of “barriers” to recruiting. What “barriers”?
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