Several months ago we posted a link on our Facebook page to a YouTube video of Mike Rowe speaking before the Senate Commerce Committee in May of 2011. Mike Rowe, in case you were not aware, has hosted the popular Discovery Channel program Dirty Jobs since 2005. In this video, Mr. Rowe stated the case for increasing the current lackluster investment our country is making toward training our youth to take on more hands on, Dirty Jobs.
As Mike Rowe explains, the past two or three decades have seen a focus put on our youth attaining a college degree. During this time very little attention has been applied to the Skilled Trades. While there is nothing wrong with having a college education, there is a growing shortage of Skilled Tradesman to fill the positions of retiring Plumbers, Electricians, Carpenters and Mechanics in the U.S.
With all of the buzz and focus on the lack of work these days the following quote from Rowe is astounding: “Right now, American manufacturing is struggling to fill 200,000 vacant positions. There are 450,000 openings in trades, transportation and utilities. The Skills Gap is real, and it’s getting wider. In Alabama, a third of all skilled tradesmen are over 55. They’re retiring fast, and no one is there to replace them.” Imagine what filling 650,000 positions would do to today’s unemployment rate!
Mike Rowe describes changing the perceptions of most in this country that dirty jobs are not something we want for our children. We need to at least show Skilled Trades as a viable option for students trying to decide how they want to invest in their future. If an equal amount of attention is allowed for both Higher Education and Skilled Trades then we may be able to stave off the decreasing pool of labor for Trades. Rowe puts it very well in his closing statement, “I encourage you to support these efforts, because closing The Skills Gap doesn’t just benefit future tradesmen and the companies desperate to hire them. It benefits people like me, and anyone else who shares my addiction to paved roads, reliable bridges, heating, air conditioning, and indoor plumbing.”
We have been lucky here at Howell’s Heating & AC to have retained a workforce of highly skilled individuals. We recently acknowledged several employees who have attained the level of Sheet Metal Technician Journeyman. Howell’s fosters a very positive approach toward employee education, picking up the tuition cost for all forms of training and education. Howell’s also works with local schools and the Richmond Technical Center to foster interest in our field. Yet, it is evident by the skill level of those applying for positions in our company that the availability of qualified workers is dwindling. We may not be fully feeling the pain just yet, but it is coming.
Another celebrity trying to increase interest in Skilled Labor and Trades offered us intriguing and somewhat baffling statistics for over a decade, from a barstool. Known to many as Cliff from Cheers and more recently as the voice of animated characters in both Toy Story and Cars, John Ratzenberger has also taken up the torch, trying to spark an interest in Vocational Training. In an interview with Bill O’Reilly on Fox’s O’Reilly Factor, Ratzenberger explains that studies show there will be a deficit of ten million skilled workers by 2020. He has teamed with the Center for America, AOL Jobs and others to focus more attention on this growing concern.
Ratzenberger’s focus is on showing how anyone can help to prevent what has been called an Industrial Tsunami. From business leaders bringing students in to factory floors and construction sites to grandparents and parents showing how to fix a bike or bake a cake. He stresses how we have lost that “tinkering spirit” our society once embraced. A very interesting read is this resource put together by Ratzenberger and the Center for America. It offers more detail on the challenges we face. The resource also offers some solutions to get us started in the right direction.
Thomas Edison, George Washington Carver, Benjamin Franklin and many other great citizens of the U.S. were tinkerers and inventors. They channeled their energy into finding out how things worked, and how they might work better. It was this spirit that also drew millions into the strong skilled workforce of yesteryear. It is that spirit that is waning in the world we find ourselves in today.
In the not too distant future, when the toilet backs up, the lights will not come on or a critical piece of equipment fails at the local power plant, who will we call, a doctor, lawyer, or tenured professor at the local college? Are these the individuals who will help solve the problems we will face in this area? When you cannot get that wonderful gadget you wanted at the local hardware store will it be possible it did not arrive because there was no one to drive the eighteen wheeler cross country to deliver it? Very possible is a future where we see an increase in our daily suffering because we did not want to have our children work jobs where they would get their hands dirty.
I am in no way demeaning higher education. I have a daughter with a Bachelor’s degree in psychology getting ready to pursue her Master’s. Her passion is directed towards helping others, just not by using a wrench or a piece of heavy equipment, which knowing her mechanical ability is a good thing. I think it is great if a young person decides to enter college to get a degree. What is lacking is somehow getting in front of each student to show there is another option. We used to provide this exposure in the form of Shop classes in our Public Schools. Unfortunately, that access faded as schools and society as a whole put more focus on higher education.
If we can do as Mike Rowe and John Ratzenberger hope to and get the word out to all of our future workers that there is another career path then we may start to turn this dire looking situation around. In the process of reinvigorating the Tinkering Spirit in the youth of today, who knows, we may begin to develop a whole generation of Edisons and Franklins as we also replace the aging, soon to retire, Plumbers, Electricians and Mechanics that have helped us get to where we are today.
- Jim
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