Evelyn Schlatter

I was talking a few weeks ago to Robyn McCulloch, the state mining engineer of Montana, and something he said stuck with me. Since the 1980s, when “mining essentially tanked in this country,” he said, programs to learn it as a trade disappeared as well. There’s been a brain drain. In other words, most people working in mining these days are in their 40s or older because mining just doesn’t attract younger people and the ones it does attract tend to come from rural areas. They’re used to the whole idea of mining. But the problem there, McCulloch said, is that rural wages haven’t increased much over the years, so families can’t afford to send their kids to college or tech schools where they’d learn mining.

I thought about that and about changing values and expectations across different industries, and also about how new technologies are affecting industries like mining, in which fewer workers are needed to do the work. I don’t really see that many young people (read: 30 and younger) in trades like construction, plumbing, electrical work, or manufacturing. Unless you’re watching Home and Garden TV, which does feature a few beautiful, hip, young people doing things like carpentry, drywall installation, and bathroom upgrades. (See? Building things can be SEXY!) For the most part, however, what we’re talking about here is the “graying” of U.S. skilled trades. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But if there aren’t any younger people coming up through the ranks, that means no one’s replacing retiring workers. Immigrant labor notwithstanding (and that’s a whole other discussion).

Last year, an article about shortages in the Oregon labor force published in the Northwest Labor Press said that the number one reason for the shortage in skilled work is demographics. The baby boom generation is retiring now and over the next fifteen years, which will lead to greater competition between employers for fewer skilled workers. A recent article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer also addressed this worrisome trend: young people are spurning trades, in spite of “good pay and steady work.” Many of these professions–construction, cabinetmaking, plumbing, stone masonry, welding–offer the chance to make over $50K a year but, educators and employers say, a negative perception of the trades and a push for college education “has dealt the professions a hard blow in the United States.” The article predicts that in industries like construction, where retirement comes early and knowledge is passed down on the job, this trend presents a problem. Construction crews will be (and are) at a loss for skilled workers, which means a slow-down in construction, and that could have repercussions in “green” building initiatives.

The Bureau of Labor provides some stats about employment trends in major industries, tracked from 1996 to 2006 and projected to 2016. And the decreases in industries like mining, construction, agriculture, and forestry are substantial–industries that are important in Western states. Even going green takes skilled workers in a variety of trades. “We need to change our attitudes about mining,” McCulloch said, because prior to the 1990s, “we’d always had a surplus of skilled workers.”

And change our attitudes about the skilled trades in general, maybe. I recommend that people under 30 start watching Home and Garden TV. Because skilled trades can be really sexy. Just sayin’.