Toolbelt Generation Dumping College For High-Paying Careers in Vo-Tech, Trade Jobs  

Labor Landscape 

American consumers are frantically searching for plumbers, electricians and welders. And Gen Z, dubbed the toolbelt generation, is answering the call. Long beset by a labor crunch, the skilled trades are now appealing to the youngest cohort of American workers, many of whom are choosing to leave the college path.  

Rising pay and new technologies in fields from welding to machine tooling are giving trade professions a facelift, helping them shed the image of being dirty, low-end work.   Growing skepticism about the return on a college education, the cost of which has soared in recent decades, is adding to their shine.   

In Pennsylvania, the trades have seen an influx of workers since the pandemic, according to Michael McGraw, executive director of the Pennsylvania Plumbing-Heating Cooling Contractors Association. In the southeastern part of the state, where McGraw is based, someone graduating five years ago from the trades school the association runs might have made $35,000 a year; these days it is closer to $60,000, said McGraw. Enrollment in the association’s  trade schools – where tuition is about $3,000 a year – has risen across the board.  

“After COVID, it seemed a lot of people realized the trades are life-sustaining,’’ said McGraw. “As other businesses shut down then, more people realized that the skilled trades were reliable, well-paying paths that weren’t going away,’’ McGraw said.   

Take the case of Cecilia Potts, for example. Potts, a fifth year apprentice in  Community College of Allegheny County’s (CCAC/IBEW) program, said that even in the years since she began her training, the perception is changing surrounding trades careers. And she has watched the electrical construction field expand, offering more career options.  

“The electrical construction field is always changing which is why I was drawn to it, and, with today’s technology there are even more options,’’ Potts said.  

Trades are flourishing as college enrollment shrinks. A U.S. Department of Education report found that the number of students enrolled in vocational – focused community colleges rose 16 percent  last year to its highest level  - since 2018. And kids studying construction trades rose 23 percent  during the five year period, while those training for HVAC and vehicle repair careers increased 7 percent.  

In Iowa, where trade programs have launched a major outreach effort aimed at high schools, college enrollment has fallen 15 percent over the past five years. America’s working class has been taking it on the chin for years. While press coverage often makes it sound like workers have failed to keep up. Those who fell behind were urged to “learn code’’ or given bad career advice. But labor economists now report that it is beginning to dawn on us that somebody has to fix the toilets and build our houses.  

“We continue to see increases across the board as more students see trade careers as a way to avoid large schooling debt, “ said Dorothy Collins, vice president of enrollment services and student affairs at CCAC.  

By 2027. the U.S. Labor Department predicts there will be a need for more than 300,000 workers for trade careers.  “We are seeing many older people too changing careers to seek opportunities in trade jobs, according to Debra Roach, vice president for workforce development at CCAC.  “As the baby boomers retire, we are losing a lot of historical knowledge in the workplace and that has to be replaced,’’ she added.  

This shortage of skilled tradespeople is brought on by the fact that older electricians, plumbers and welders are retiring, driving up the cost of labor, as many sticker-shocked homeowners embark on repairs and renovations in recent years.  The median pay for new construction hires rose 5.1 percent to $48,089 last quarter.  By contrast, new hires in professional services earned an annual $39,520, up 2.7 percent  from 2022, according to data from payroll-service provider ADP.  

Demand for trade apprenticeships, which let students combine work experience with a course of study often paid for by employers, has boomed. In a survey of high school and college-age people by software giant Jobber last year, 75 percent said they were interested in vocational schools offering, paid on-the-job training.  

 And the rise of generative AI is changing the career calculus for some young people. The majority of respondents Jobber surveyed said they thought blue-collar jobs offered better job security than white collar jobs for the cognitive elite.   

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