While Generation Z — those born between 1997 and 2012 — is on track to become the most educated and ethnically diverse generation in history, they’re also showing little interest in skilled trades. Jobs like welding, electrical work, plumbing, and other hands-on roles are being overlooked, leaving these critical industries with fewer and fewer workers. According to McKinsey & Company, between 2022 and 2032, the need to hire skilled tradesmen will skyrocket, with demand expected to run past the rate at which new jobs are being created by 20 times. To put this into scale, companies would have to spend no less than $5.3 billion in talent acquisition and training costs every year.
But here’s where the problem becomes even more threatening: the number of young people applying for skilled trades jobs has just dropped dramatically — 49% since 2020. With Gen Z gravitating towards expensive college degrees and full-time content creation on Instagram or TikTok, the nation’s backbone industries are struggling to fill the trades gap which grows wider day by day. Without enough skilled workers, essential services we rely on, like our plumbers, could slow down or even collapse.
Let’s find out more about this skilled trades deficit and how we can make these careers appealing to the new generation again!
The Impact of the Skilled Tradesman Deficit on the U.S. Economy
You might be wondering, what is the trades gap we keep mentioning?
The COVID-19 pandemic created ripples of disruption in America’s workforce, eventually leading to quitting trends like The Great Resignation. While the trend gradually lost its effect, a big chunk of the country’s workforce decided to transition to different career roles in search of flexibility and better benefits. But the demand for skilled trades keeps on rising, creating a gap that impacts the US economy in the following ways:
Costly Hiring and Training New Employees
Naturally, the financial burden of tradesman shortage is felt by companies who are struggling to fill basic roles and are backed into a corner to resort to costly recruitment strategies. Every time a company loses an experienced tradesman, they lose both the expertise of that employee and now face the expenses of training a new worker for that position. And since fewer people are interested in learning skilled trades, companies have no choice but to offer higher wages and benefits to attract the scarce talent.
For industries that rely solely on these skilled tradesmen, like construction and manufacturing, these rising costs can be crippling.
Disruptions in Supply Chain
This trades gap is causing serious bottlenecks in the U.S. supply chain. Construction, maintenance, and manufacturing projects that once took months to complete now have to be pushed back due to no skilled tradesman available. It works like a domino effect. For instance, without enough electricians or HVAC technicians, a housing project could be delayed for months.
Economy Feels a Pinch
When businesses are forced to compete for skilled tradesman in this already shrinking pool of talent, wages hike too. While this might seem like a positive outcome for workers, it drives up the cost of services too. With fewer plumbers or electricians present to do the job, people like us who need their services would have no option but to pay higher fees. When prices for basic services start to rise, high inflation doesn’t seem like a distant possibility.
Dependency on Foreign Labor
The U.S. is forced to rely on immigrant labor to fill the shortage of skilled tradesmen.
In healthcare, for example, immigrants make up a big portion of the workforce, with 15.6% of all nurses and 27.7% of health aides being foreign-born. Similarly, in construction, one in four workers were immigrants in 2022. Immigrants have played a very important role in building the U.S. economy by stepping in where domestic interest has declined (like the case of Gen Z’s lack of interest), but this dependency comes with challenges.
Tight immigration policies and visa restrictions can make it difficult to bring in foreign workers and work on skill-based roles, which makes it an unsustainable solution to the trade gap.
What Can Be Done to Address this Skilled Trades Gap?
Of course, not all is lost, yet. There are still ways to mitigate this skilled trades gap domestically before it does serious damage to the U.S. economy.
Change the Mindset
You can’t change people for who they are, but you can certainly change their mindset. One of the important steps in closing this skills gap is to change how people perceive these careers. The younger generation has steered towards college degrees as a way to land high-paying jobs or start their own business, while skilled trades have been viewed as less prestigious or lucrative. To counter this, we need more initiatives that bring out the value and rewards of these skilled trades jobs. You must’ve heard of Mike Rowe’s campaign ‘Dirty Jobs’ which helps to resolve the stigma surrounding these careers and promotes skilled trades as respectable.
Make Vocational Training Compulsory
Vocational schools and apprenticeship programs give hands-on and practical training for tradesmen which can help promote these skills and attract young people towards it. Private companies can partner with trade unions and the government to create programs that teach essential skills like plumbing or welding and eventually place these people in long-term positions.
Financial Incentives Never Fail
It’s true, financial incentives can be the biggest attraction for people to learn skilled trades. These incentives could be in the form of tax breaks, scholarships, and grants for students who take vocational training to learn specific skills. For companies that have already employed skilled tradesmen, they should offer market-competitive wages and attractive benefits to retain this valuable talent.
Play Technology to Your Advantage
Gen Z is a digitally native generation which means most of their time is spent scrolling through platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. This is where businesses and organizations can strike to highlight the benefits of learning skilled trades and make it more appealing to the younger audience. Creating shareable and engaging content related to the financial rewards and technologies behind trades like plumbing or construction can help you reach Gen Z where they already are — online.
You could show day-to-day experiences, GRWM (get ready with me) videos, and success stories to rewrite the narrative of what the reality of being a skilled tradesman is. A useful tip: use User Generated Content to your advantage!
Wrapping Up
Without enough plumbers, electricians, welders and other skilled workers, the industries that keep the country running are at risk of stalling or slowing down.
But there’s still hope. A change of narrative is required which will start with a change of mindset and stigma around the topic of working on these skilled jobs. Technology can be used to target the younger people who are about to become the biggest generation in the current workforce.
The time to act is now—before the backbone of our economy starts to give in to the weight of this deficit.