Mike Rowe on America’s great tradesperson shortage: ‘I don’t care what your politics are. Math doesn’t care, either’
Source: Fortune ·
At Ford Pro Accelerate, Rowe sparred with Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Defense's Mike Duffy about the divide between college and the trades.
From the source
Mike Rowe offered a blunt way to describe America’s skilled-worker shortage: the country is losing tradespeople faster than it is replacing them. “For every five tradespeople who retire this year, two replace them,” Rowe said during a Ford Pro Accelerate panel on workforce development. “Five out, two in. I don’t care how you vote. I don’t care what your politics are. Math doesn’t care either.” The host of Dirty Jobs has made variations of that argument for years. But at Ford’s gathering, Rowe’s warning about welders, electricians, and other skilled workers became the opening to a more expansive conversation with Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Michael Duffy, Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment, US. Department of War, about what the country gets wrong when it treats college and career training as opposing paths. The emerging argument was not merely that Americans need more people in the trades. It was that the language of “blue collar” and “white collar” may no…