The arrival of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) era has sparked fear in many people who worry about their own or their children’s jobs being taken over in the future. However, there is one industry currently facing a massive labor shortage due to social biases and other issues that need a large number of workers in the foreseeable future.
Emmy Award winner, host of the “Dirty Jobs” program, and CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, Mike Rowe, recently said at a summit, “For 15 years, we’ve been telling kids to learn programming. However, now, artificial intelligence is replacing programmers.”
“While AI will not replace welders, pipefitters, steamfitters, pipe installers, HVAC technicians, or electricians.”
“In Aspen, I heard Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO of the world’s largest asset management company BlackRock, say that we will need 500,000 electricians in the coming years, not an exaggeration.”
Rowe founded the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, advocating for the trades and providing scholarships to people willing to learn skills that are in demand. He mentioned receiving calls every week from large institutions or companies inquiring about the shortage of skilled workers.
He said, “The BlueForge Alliance, responsible for overseeing the foundation of our nation’s maritime industrial base, is a coalition of 15,000 companies who have collectively taken on the task of building and delivering three nuclear-powered submarines to the navy annually over the next 10 years… The officials involved called and said, ‘We are having a hard time finding technical workers. Can you help?'”
When Rowe asked how many skilled workers they needed, the response was, “140,000 people.” This is the number needed in the next seven years, but currently, the organization needs 80,000 to 90,000 people.
Rowe expressed with seriousness, “We are talking about our submarines. If situations change in the future, whether it is a conflict between the CCP and Taiwan or other issues, our aircraft carriers will no longer be at the forefront of combat.”
“Our submarines are crucial, and these people are facing a bottleneck because they cannot find welders and electricians to build submarines. They ask, ‘Where are they? We’ve looked everywhere. Do you know?’ I said, ‘Yes, I know where they are. They are in eighth grade.'”
Currently, the automotive industry also needs about 80,000 collision repair technicians and related technical personnel, and in the energy sector, the exact number of skilled workers needed is uncertain—some say 300,000, while others say 500,000.
He said, “We are facing a clear and imminent crisis. In the past six months, I have communicated with six governors and talked to leaders of large domestic companies about this issue.”
He stated that if young people can learn the skills in demand, they can have a bright future because it meets the needs on a political and social level and can bring about substantial change.
According to Fox News, the labor supply in the skilled trades market continues to shrink due to retirements and a lack of young labor forces.
Consulting giant McKinsey & Company pointed out that despite the decreasing number of skilled workers, the demand for these workers is expected to remain high due to infrastructure needs, the real estate development boom, and energy transition. Additionally, with the rise of remote work, the reuse of commercial real estate may further increase the demand for construction workers.
Research data from the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) in the United States shows that to meet the demand for construction services, the construction industry needs to attract about 439,000 net new workers in 2025 and 499,000 new workers in 2026.
Economist Anirban Basu of the ABC noted that if the construction industry cannot fill these positions, the labor costs for the entire industry will accelerate, exacerbating already high construction costs and reducing financially feasible construction projects.
Previously, during an interview on The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” program, Rowe pointed out that over 7.2 million capable working-age men in the U.S. are not seeking employment, with millions of high-paying skilled jobs unfilled. He warned that a deep-rooted cultural bias is keeping an entire generation away from these critically important careers.
He mentioned that if President Trump can successfully revitalize American manufacturing, “he will face not just a skills gap but a willingness gap.”
He emphasized, “Without an active and willing workforce, if we cannot break those biases, stereotypes, misconceptions, and misunderstandings — factors that have deterred millions of young people from these jobs — we will face an entirely different set of problems.”
Rowe believed that the cancelation of vocational courses in high schools decades ago led to the current situation.
He said, “When I was in high school, in 1979, 1980, it still existed, but already declining. By the 1980s, we totally eliminated it. We deprived that generation of kids of the opportunity to see something meaningful to them in the skilled trades. We removed those jobs from their line of sight.”
“On the way from math class to English class, maybe you would walk by a woodshop, a metal shop, or an auto repair shop, maybe you would look inside, maybe you would see something that looked like a job you might want to do in the future. Maybe that would start to tickle your brain a little, oh, what is this? However, all of that was removed.”
He stated that to solve the skilled labor shortage issue, the primary task is to dispel biases and stereotypes and get people to rethink what constitutes a “good job.”
He said, “Someone makes $150,000 a year through welding; someone obtained a plumber certificate and turned it into a mechanical contracting business; someone earns $80,000 to $90,000 a year by cutting hair… Many people live very well without a four-year college degree.”
Eric Trump, the son of President Trump and Executive Vice President of the Trump Organization Inc., praised Rowe’s contributions to advocating for trade vocations in a previous interview with The Epoch Times and also pointed out that the U.S. needs to change its approach, especially in changing young people’s perceptions of university degrees and manufacturing jobs.
He said, “Many strive for Ivy League degrees, and yet, there are plenty of job opportunities outside. Some jobs pay in the tens of thousands of dollars annually. I mean, these are great professions. However, you know, in this country, a lot of these jobs are largely overlooked.”