Why aren't more people taking on the trades?

0:01NPR

0:11This is the Indicator for Planet Money. I'm Adrian Ma. And I'm Darian Woods, and it is Jobs Friday. It's that time of the month when we take the temperature of the American jobs market and we see how the economy is working for everyday people. In August, 142 ,000 jobs were added to the US economy. That's a little on the soft side, especially given that previous month's jobs numbers were revised down. There were some bright spots, though. Unemployment's ticked down slightly to 4.2%. 34 ,000 new construction jobs were created. And while manufacturing jobs were down last month, long-term, the trades will be needed.

0:55And that's why today we're going to focus on manufacturing jobs. According to a recent report by the consulting firm Deloitte, the U.S. manufacturing industry could need as many as 3.8 million new employees over the next decade. And yet about half those jobs could go unfilled. So it's a bit of a problem in need of some kind of solution. And when Darnell Epps learned about this projected labor shortage, his mind started racing. It was, you know, kind of baffling to me. I learned that these jobs were very good paying jobs. I couldn't, you know, understand why there was this labor shortage and this inability to find talent when there were so many people that were desperately in search of middle-class careers.

1:39Darnell decided he wanted somehow to help bridge that gap. But at the time, Darnell was in his second year of law school at Yale. Yeah, while a lot of Darnell's classmates were thinking about getting judicial clerkships or maybe a second degree in business or medicine, Darnell took an unusual step of doing his law degree while learning a trade. Today on the show, Darnell explains why he went from studying law books in ivy-covered lecture halls to reading blueprints in machine-filled workshops.

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2:56Maybe it's full of brave first leaps, tearful goodbyes, and everything in between. And with over 100 years of experience, your Edward Jones Financial Advisor can help. Edward Jones, member SIPC. This message comes from Dell Technologies. Your new Dell PC with Intel Core Ultra helps you handle a lot when your holiday to-dos get to be a lot. That's the power of a Dell PC with Intel inside. Get yours at Dell.com slash holiday. So Darnell Epps became kind of obsessed with this problem. Manufacturing companies can't find enough skilled workers to fill open jobs. And there seemed to be lots of people out there that with a little training could do those jobs.

3:42Was there some way for him to bridge that gap? So he started talking with some investors who had experience with manufacturing startups. and one early idea that came up with was virtual reality skill training. We thought it would give more people access to sort of this hands-on experience that is needed to really, in some cases, to train effective technicians to fill these positions, right? At least that's what we thought. But after trying out all this different hardware, we kind of all got cyber sick. I didn't know if my son was running around burning the house down while I had the Oculus on And I was like, oh, no.

4:22So this wasn't the answer. The metaverse claims another dream. Yeah, back to the drawing board. But, you know, this failed foray into VR training led Darnell to another realization. He realized that he himself did not have a full understanding of the job market that he was trying to improve. And that's why I needed to go to trade school to really see for myself, like, what kind of positions these employers are looking to fill and what are the skills needed to fill them. During his second year of law school, he enrolled in a vocational school, a local branch of Lincoln Tech. So I was, you know, reading Ginsberg opinions and Scalia opinions throughout the mornings and then hopping in my car and doing a 50-minute commute at 12 o 'clock after I scrambled to grab my lunch out of the Yale cafeteria and throwing on a uniform and some timberland boots and running into the vocational classes where I was learning to become a machinist.

5:23A machinist, by the way, is essentially a trade person that specializes in making metal parts, really precise parts that go in everything from cars and airplanes to tools and medical devices. And what was the first part Darnell made when he was learning this trade? I made a cool gavel. I have it somewhere. All right. Here we go. Whoa. That's the first thing you made? That's the first thing I made. Yeah. That's really nice. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like, you know, what you would see in a judge's chambers. But it's beautiful. It's like, it's shiny. If I'm ever a judge, you know, this is what I will use, you know?

6:08Before you learned to be a machinist, would you have considered yourself like a handy person? Not at all. Not at all. My wife would typically laugh at me because I was so not handy. Darnell learned to read blueprints and operate metal cutting machines. He learned that a lot of advanced manufacturing jobs today require knowledge of software and math and even AI. It was fun and it was rewarding. And I think, you know, it was there that I really developed the deep appreciation for the work that a skilled workforce is doing. Going to trade school at the same time as law school also drove home for Darnell why many manufacturers say hiring is their biggest challenge.

6:51Kind of sobering because when I enrolled at Lincoln Tech, I went from having 50 or so students in my torts class at Yale to then going to my machining class at Lincoln Tech and only having two other people. So that just highlighted where we were with our priorities as a country, as a society. Are you saying, in fact, that we have enough lawyers and not enough machinists? What I'm saying is that we should have just as many machinists as we have lawyers, right? That ratio shouldn't be 50 to 2, right? Like, that is absurd, right? On a nationwide scale, the ratio of lawyers to machinists isn't quite that large.

7:39But there are, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, currently more than twice as many lawyers as machinists working today. And it's worth highlighting here that there's some big macro business trends also shaping the demand for manufacturing jobs. So remember how the pandemic clogged up global supply chains? Well, because of that, many U.S. companies have been looking to domestic manufacturers to try and sure up their supply chains. And right now, you also have the federal government investing billions of dollars to build things like clean energy infrastructure and semiconductor chip factories.

8:14The problem, Darnell says, is that if the workers aren't there to work in these plants, then these projects could become white elephants, grand, expensive, and empty. Since graduating from law school and trade school, Darnell has started a company called Thurgood Industries, which is a nod to his legal hero, Thurgood Marshall. But the company's main product has nothing really to do with the law. Basically, it's an app. Think LinkedIn, if it were geared specifically towards manufacturing and construction jobs. And the goal here is sort of twofold, making it easier for employers to find potential workers and to make the trades more appealing to folks who might not have considered them.

8:57Part of the problem is societal because we devalued what the trades do and how meaningful they are and the creativity. It's a marketing problem. It's a marketing problem. So we want people to be able to see that. And I think too often high schoolers are told that if you don't go to college, you're a failure, right? Or that the career opportunities for you are going to be very limited. But there are alternatives, and advanced manufacturing and the trades are just that. It's like alternative radio. You know, it's cooler, grungier. You get to wear a black t-shirt. Do we count as alternative radio?

9:40I mean, we're like, you know, podcasts are an alternative to radio. No, we are not alternative radio. I'm wearing a beige t-shirt, not that. No heavy metal slogans here.

9:54This episode was produced by Cooper Katz-McKim with engineering by Senla Lofredo and Valentina Rodriguez-Sanchez. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Cake and Cannon edits the show and The Indicator is a production of NPR.

10:13Brian Reid here, host of Question Everything from KCRW. We're working on a bunch of new episodes It's coming out in September. But if you, like me, are feeling perplexed about how journalism and truth are faring in this moment, please go catch up with the stories we've done about intrepid reporters, influencers, propagandists, liars, and everybody in between. Question Everything is part of the NPR Podcast Network.