Not directly to your question, but I dislike this NPR article very much.

Mwandjalulu dreamed of becoming a carpenter or electrician as a child. And now he’s fulfilling that dream. But that also makes him an exception to the rule. While Gen Z — often described as people born between 1997 and 2012 — is on track to become the most educated generation, fewer young folks are opting for traditionally hands-on jobs in the skilled trade and technical industries.

The entire article contains a buried classist assumption. Carpenters have just as much a reason to study theater, literature, or philosophy as, say, project managers at tech companies (those three examples are from PMs that I’ve worked with). Being educated and a carpenter are only in tension because of decisions that we’ve made, because having read Plato has as much in common with being a carpenter as it does with being a PM. Conversely, it would be fucking lit if our society had the most educated plumbers and carpenters in the world.

NPR here is treating school as job training, which is, in my opinion, the root problem. Job training is definitely a part of school, but school and society writ large have a much deeper relationship: An educated public is necessary for a functioning democracy. 1 in 5 Americans is illiterate. If we want a functioning democracy, then we need to invest in everyone’s education for its own sake, rather than treat it as a distinguishing feature between lower classes and upper ones, and we need to treat blue collar workers as people who also might wish to be intellectually fulfilled, rather than as a monolithic class of people who have some innate desire to work with their hands and avoid book learning (though those kinds of people need also be welcomed).

Occupations such as auto technician with aging workforces have the U.S. Chamber of Commerce warning of a “massive” shortage of skilled workers in 2023.

This is your regular reminder that the Chamber of Commerce is a private entity that represents capital. Everything that they say should be taken with a grain of salt. There’s a massive shortage of skilled workers for the rates that businesses are willing to pay, which has been stagnant for decades as corporate profits have gone up. If you open literally any business and offer candidates enough money, you’ll have a line out the door to apply.