Want to Know How to Solve the Skilled Worker Shortage? Ask Skilled Workers
by Xuan Yong, Co-Founder and CEO of Workrise
Breon Hodge’s early years were all about survival. He spent his childhood being bounced between family members in Texas, California and Michigan, and was in and out of prison from 21 to 30. Then he became a father, and his own survival was no longer his top priority. Breon’s grandfather, one of the few sources of structure and support in his life, was a plumber, welder and heavy equipment operator for the city of Austin, Texas. He showed Breon the value of hard work, discipline, and gainful employment. He believed in his grandson and, Breon says, “inspired me, gave me the will to get dirty, want to build, want to dig.” Last year, Breon got his electrician’s license. He now works for a private company in Austin as a low-voltage technician to provide for his three children: sons Keyami, 12, and Royce, 5, and daughter Jariah, 10. He’s trying to be the same kind of role model for them that his grandfather — who passed away in 2011 — was for Breon.
Skilled workers like Breon are part of the national conversation right now. And they should be. They’re the men and women who do the hard work that makes this country run: They build the solar panels, retrofit the train tunnels, lay the foundation for the natural gas plants, fix the bridges. But the national conversation has been missing the point.
There’s plenty of talk about the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that President Biden has called “the largest American jobs investment since World War II,” one he says will create “the most resilient, innovative economy in the world.” But there aren’t enough skilled laborers to build the projects the plan will generate. The president’s Build Back Better legislation, which attempts to fill the skilled labor gap, has been stuck in legislative limbo since passing the House in November. Even if it does become law, it’s a baby step in the right direction, not a silver-bullet solution. And the conversations playing out in Washington, D.C., and around the country about this legislation and how to best meet our country’s infrastructure needs are largely ignoring the single most critical factor in putting us on course for a better future.
That factor is human agency.
All the financial and legislative resources in the world — and even the millions of blue-collar jobs the infrastructure plan will create — will not restore the prosperity once shared by many working-class Americans in the great post-war economic boom. That’s because of the tectonic shift that’s taken place in our country when it comes to blue-collar work like Breon’s.
For previous generations, ‘gainful employment’ was the key to stability and consistency for the working class. The golden age of so-called cradle-to-grave benefits meant that healthcare, vacation and retirement — along with steady paychecks — were guaranteed. But today’s gig economy means that many of our skilled workers, while technically enjoying the freedom to choose their next job and work on their own terms, are not really free. They live without consistency or security, or the guarantee of the next well-paying job, or any promise of upward mobility, or the tools to build a nest egg for the future. In other words, without the things that made jobs in manufacturing and the skilled trades so attractive to their parents and grandparents.
This isn’t just a sad footnote in the history of our country’s industrial labor story. Our system is broken.
After a half-century of industrial decline, we lack the skilled labor force necessary to meet the challenges ahead. Unless we fill as many as 2.4 million skilled jobs in manufacturing, the U.S. economy could suffer a $2.5 trillion loss by 2028. If we want to build back that skilled labor force, we need to stop talking about workers and talk to them.
Once we all start listening, a few things will be clear:
- We must make the skilled trades as financially viable as they are emotionally rewarding.
- We must adjust for 21st-century realities and build in security, flexibility and portability so that taking a few weeks off to care for a sick relative or go on the vacation of a lifetime or reset mentally is a reward, not a risk.
- We must restore honor and prestige to the skilled trades, showing young people that being an electrician, pipeline inspector, welder or wind turbine technician is just as important as becoming a banker, coder, lawyer or doctor. That means doubling down on vocational training for students and upskilling for mid-career workers.
Our country needs skilled laborers now more than ever.
But while historians consider how we got here, analysts study potential solutions and pundits turn the issue into political debate fodder, the answer is hiding in plain sight. Look no further than Breon. He’s the embodiment of human agency. He uses his skills as an electrician to support his family and dreams of one day making a living wiring smart houses, maybe owning a business or two. He honors his late grandfather by getting his hands dirty every day doing hard, honest work. “I’m pretty sure,” says Breon, “he’d be proud of me.”
If workers like Breon can get the right training at the right time and earn what they need, when and where they need to, and know the next job will be waiting for them, we will have the means to build our country’s future and execute even the most ambitious infrastructure plan. And we will be unstoppable.
To meet our country’s changing needs, we need to take care of today’s skilled workers and transform an industry that has lost the honor and resources it deserves. That’s my mission as CEO of Workrise, an Austin, Texas-based workforce management platform for the skilled trades that has connected more than 26,000 workers with jobs and helped 2,000+ train or upskill into new specialties. Watch this space: Over the next few months I’ll examine how we can close the skilled labor gap — not by talking to policy wonks or politicians, but by listening to workers like Breon, the people who get the hard work done.
