Mike Rowe says CEOs are 'freaking out' over barriers to recruiting skilled trades workers

Electricians, welders and HVAC technicians are commanding six-figure salaries as companies poach workers from rivals

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.
"A lot of companies are doing things to grease the skids to accelerate the whole learning process," Rowe said. "Everybody is hiring, and nobody is quite sure how to come at it because they're all competing with each other for the same worker."
Rowe said that a wide range of companies are seeking skilled workers, from tech companies building data centers and power plants amid the AI boom to defense contractors, home improvement firms, automakers, construction firms and more.
"The government's got a ton of skin in the game at this point, but so too does Ford and General Motors and every major Fortune 500 company. It's almost like a kind of singularity is happening around this issue — micro and macro," he said.
"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.
Rowe spoke with FOX Business after he visited DECKED's facility in Defiance, Ohio, where the company makes sliding drawer systems for pickup trucks. He added that the company is one of many that are hiring workers in the skilled trades.
DECKED shared an economic analysis comparing skilled trades workers, including electricians, HVAC technicians and plumbers, to bachelor's degree holders who don't have an advanced degree that found the trades offer a faster path to financial breakeven with less debt.
It found that trade trainees can break even in less than a year by starting to earn right after high school or after half a year to two years in trade school, given median entry-level wages. By contrast, a college graduate at the median starting salary who didn't work during school would break even in about three and two-thirds years.

TRUE STORY

About 20 years ago I had a client shopping for a house in town. Byram-bred, he was by his own admission “not a book person”, so, on the verge of flunking out, he left GHS and transferred to Wright Technical High School ,just across the Stamford border. Upon graduation, found work at Greenwich Mercedes as a mechanic, rose to Service Manager, and was then lured away by Mercedes Manhattan as its service manager. When I met him, he was still a young man in his 30s, overseeing 80 mechanics.

Even then, there was huge shortage of mechanics in the New York area, and “Ralph” — we’ll call him Ralph because that was his name — told me of his frustration at trying to recruit more. He and one of his top mechanics would travel to inner-city and borough high schools and tell assemblies of students what Mercedes of Manhattan was offering: Free training, with a $30,000 salary while learning, and a rapid rise to $75,000 — $80,000 a year.

Back then that was real money, but the students wouldn’t bite: “they all said they were going it make millions as basketball stars”, Ralph recounted sadly, “and I don’t think any of them ever did.”

Who knows whether even one of them went on to stardom, but I do know that the Byram mechanic who became my friend bought a house on Indian Field Road for almost half-a-million dollars, renovated it himself, and eventually sold it for almost a million. Not bad for a kid who never went to college (and would have hated it if he had).

Greenwich High School, I’m told, has a good industrial arts program, and to give former Governor Dan Malloy (who had previously been Mayor of Stamford) and the CT legislature their due, Wright Tech, which was closed in 2009, was reopened during Malloy’s administration and vastly improved; more schools around the country should do their students a huge favor and follow suit.

Grok:

J.M. Wright Technical High School (commonly called Wright Tech) in Stamford, CT, closed temporarily, but it was later reopened as essentially the same institution (upgraded), not permanently shut down or replaced by a different school.

It is a state-run technical high school in the Connecticut Technical Education and Career System (CTECS). It is a full four-year high school (grades 9–12), not primarily a two-year program. Students take a mix of academics and intensive career/technical education (CTE) in a chosen trade, graduate with a high school diploma plus a certificate in their field, and can pursue jobs, apprenticeships, or college. Current/recent offerings include Automotive Technology, Carpentry, Culinary Arts, Digital Media, Electrical, Health Technology, HVAC, Information Technology, and Plumbing & Heating (with some variation over time; it has also offered facilities management and others). Students from towns including Stamford, Greenwich, Norwalk, and others in the region can attend.⁠

Closure and Reopening

Operations were suspended in 2009 under then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell amid state budget pressures, years of declining enrollment, lower academic performance metrics, and an aging facility. It was framed as a temporary two-year suspension to save money, but it stayed closed longer (about five years total). Teachers largely left or transferred, and enrollment had already been low relative to capacity.⁠Stamfordadvocate
Local and state advocates, alumni, business interests, and legislators pushed to reopen it. Under Gov. Dannel Malloy, the state invested roughly $85–90 million in a full renovation/gut rehab of the building (about 200,000 square feet of modernized shops, labs, and facilities).
It reopened in fall 2014 starting with ninth graders (phasing in one grade per year until it was a full 9–12 school). It was promoted as a modernized “flagship” technical high school with updated programs and partnerships.⁠Stamfordadvocate

It continues to operate today at 120 Bridge Street in Stamford as part of CTECS, with roughly 500 students in recent data, sports/activities, work-based learning options, and pathways that prepare students for careers or further education. Official site: wright.cttech.org.

UPDATE: I’ve been reading about this recently, and it’s a problem:

THE AI ECONOMY STILL NEEDS BEGINNERS. This strikes me as very true: “The result is a difficult paradox: AI can make experienced workers more productive while it could reduce the number of opportunities through which beginners can acquire experience.” We need to figure out how to fix this, fast.

We can probably suffer through a shortage of experienced social worker supervisors, but welders?