By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-10-04 10:06:48 | Updated at 2026-10-04 10:47:13
47 minutes ago
The United States will need to fill about 1.7 million skilled-trade jobs a year through 2035, according to a recent report, a stark gap at a time when many workers fear artificial intelligence (AI) is taking their jobs.
The report, “The State of America’s Skilled Trades,” published on Sept. 30 by nonprofit organization Jobs for the Future (JFF), attributes the surge to rising demand and shrinking supply.
Meanwhile, it warns that businesses across the essential economy are struggling to hire. The issue drew national leaders to the Ford Accelerate Summit this week, where they sought practical solutions.
What Counts as a Skilled Trade
Skilled trades are the traditional occupations that keep the economy running: manufacturing, repair, fabrication, raw material extraction, industrial equipment servicing, and construction and infrastructure upkeep.
Despite their diversity, skilled-trade occupations share two characteristics. First, they typically involve hands-on, physical work. Second, they require specific trade skills, which sets them apart from unskilled manual labor.
Those skills come through Registered Apprenticeships and on-the-job and off-the-job training, which require a time commitment from both employees and employers.
The JFF report identifies 124 occupations spanning construction, installation, maintenance and repair, production, and extraction. They include automotive service technicians and mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and heating, air-conditioning, and refrigeration installers and mechanics.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, these jobs offer above-average pay. Median pay in 2025 was $60,580 for carpenters, $63,800 for construction equipment operators, $55,440 for roofers, and $61,800 for sheet-metal workers.
Automotive service technicians earned $50,620, and heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning mechanics and installers earned $61,010.
Most of those figures top the median wage of $50,980 for all U.S. occupations in May 2025.
A Hiring Squeeze
The upbeat outlook for skilled-trade jobs contrasts with a recent slowdown in overall job growth. The U.S. economy added just 29,000 jobs in September, the BLS reported on Friday, down from a revised 133,000 in August and well short of the 90,000 economists expected.
According to the JFF report, a revival of American manufacturing is driving demand for tradespeople, as large companies bring production home after decades of outsourcing. Infrastructure projects and the data-center boom are increasing demand.
On the supply side, retirements are leaving openings to fill while shrinking the pool of experienced workers who can supervise and mentor younger workers. Demanding training requirements, which take a considerable investment from both employers and workers, further limit the number of new entrants.
Seeking Solutions
Business and government leaders say they are working on the issue.
This week, Ford CEO Jim Farley convened the first national dialogue on the Essential Economy, a term for the 3 million businesses and critical industries that keep the nation running.
“One of the biggest barriers is the hesitancy to enter these trades, because as a society, we don’t really reward or celebrate the people who take on these kinds of jobs,” Farley said at the conference opening on Sept. 30.
“We can’t rely on government to fix it. We can’t just rely on business or communities. It has to be a cooperative effort.”
Mike Rowe, CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, pointed to a lopsided flow of workers into and out of the trades.
“I’m most struck by the math here: for every two who come in, five leave the trades,” Rowe said during a panel hosted by Farley. “And it is not just about plumbers and electricians and construction workers. The shipbuilding industry needs 250,000 tradesmen.”
Former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, also a panelist, said the federal government recognizes the urgency of the shortage.
“We’re up against a timeline,” she said. “We have to make sure the diversity of educational options is right and that everybody is at the table.”
Thasunda Brown Duckett, chief executive of TIAA, and Cathy O’Callaghan, CEO of Ford Credit, stressed the need to strengthen the finances of essential-economy workers and businesses.
“We need to understand the roadblocks for individual workers and make sure they have the tools for financial security and a dignified retirement,” she said.
Julio Briones, founder and CEO of Briones Consulting Group, which advises companies on growth, operations, business development and workforce recruitment, said the larger challenge isn’t filling 1.7 million jobs but keeping people in them.
He cited figures from the report: Current training pathways produce only about 55 workers for every 100 needed. Of every 100 apprenticeship starters, only 48 finish, and only 29 are working in a skilled trade five years after leaving the program.
“America doesn’t just have a skilled-worker recruiting problem. We have a workforce conversion and retention problem,” Briones said.
He said employers should examine the entire workforce funnel—from interest, application, training, completion, to eventually employment and retention.
“If people continue dropping out at each stage, simply spending more money attracting people into the trades will not close the gap,” he said. “You cannot recruit your way out of a retention problem.”
Briones also said the trades offer young people a path to sustainable work without a four-year degree.
“But simply telling young people these careers exist will not solve the workforce shortage,” he said. “The goal should be getting more of them from interest to training, from employment training, and from employment to a sustainable career.”
