With 550,000 trade apprenticeships available nationwide, a recent Washington D.C. study found that interest in trade positions is exceeding availability.
The study also found modest gains in college graduates entering some areas of the skilled labor sector.
The study found that interest exceeded availability in plumbing schools by nearly 14 fold and in electrician union schools by 25 fold in the Washington D.C. area. The construction trade also experienced a nearly two percent increase in the number of workers with bachelor degrees compared to levels in 2000.
However, the nationwide trend in such fields is typical of a down economy. Following the inflated economy and growing job market of 2006 and 2007, students now have to look for interim jobs until positions open up in their respective fields of study, according to Kathy Sims, director of the UCLA Career Center.
“(At UCLA) we have not necessarily seen a deliberate choice of the vast majority of students to elect to go into trade positions, or positions not in their fields,” Sims said. “We have seen students (go into trade positions) on a temporary basis while they explore positions in their field though.”
The Career Center is currently conducting the UCLA Destination First Survey to determine the overarching trends of student occupations post graduation, although results won’t be available until spring, Sims added.
Temporary opportunities for students, mostly outside of the trade sector, not only allow students to ride out economic downturns, but varied experiences also make them more competitive and appealing in the eyes of employers, Sims said.
The center’s lack of current data on potential interest stems not from students but from the lack of trade organizations promoting positions through the center’s Bruinview website as well as from the general labor environment of L.A., Sims said.
In L.A., the Department of Labor reports a 5.9 percent decline in manufacturing jobs, a 3.9 percent drop in trade utility jobs, and an 18.4 percent decline in construction employment since 2009.
“Manufacturing is the basis of every culture. That is what makes it strong,” said John Ratzenberger, a founder of the Nuts, Bolts and Thingamajigs Foundation, an organization that engages young people in the hands-on skills necessary to facilitate a skilled manufacturing work force. “Shuffling papers does not do it, you have to build and make something. I call them essential workers.”
It is this decline, paired with an increasing number of, although college-graduated, unskilled and under-prepared workers entering blue-collar jobs that is causing the most worry amongst businesses.
According to Ratzenberger, within the next six to 10 years America will be hit by a “manufacturing tsunami,” because the average age of a manufacturer in America is 55 years old.
“If actors or musicians disappeared it would be sad but society would be fine, but imagine if (the essential workers) disappeared, then our infrastructure would collapse,” he added.
With that in mind, Nuts, Bolts and Thingamajigs focuses on teaching kids and teens the skills formerly taught in high school shop classes, skills that will allow them to fix and build things, according to the foundation’s website.
A 2009 Nut, Bolts and Thingamajigs study found that 72 percent of teens have never taken an industrial shop class, which leads to 60 percent of adults who avoid handling major household repairs on their own.
“We have to rekindle the tinkering spirit in the youth of America today, because today’s tinkerer is tomorrow’s inventor,” said Ratzenberger, who, as a spokesman for the Manufacturing Crisis in America, has spoken to various organizations and colleges as well as Congress regarding the shortage of skilled labor in the US.
And while the Career Center does not outwardly promote trade apprenticeships over any other occupational opportunity, Sims said she feels confident the Center can help students from first years to doctoral students actualize their potential in this down economy.
“Our primary mission is to advance the career development of students through exploring careers and exploring themselves,” Sims said. “It all starts with helping students gain focus and confidence in the choices they are making earlier in their academic careers and feeling good about going forward.”