I do not believe the apprenticeship programs for the building trades are given enough respect and credibility in the US as they should get, and we shoot ourselves in the foot with our own labor laws.
We pretend to educate our children in public schools while simultaneously preaching how important college is, which for the most part a vast majority of our kids will not attend. I have actually overheard a woman telling her kids if they don’t study real hard and go to college or they will end up as a “construction worker”.
Twenty five years ago the IBEW apprenticeship program rejected way more young men than they accepted, now they actively recruit in local high schools and job fairs and are lucky to get a handful of boys who are interested, and of that group only about 25% are keepers.
My oldest boy has ZERO interest in being a “construction worker”, and lacks the discipline to go to college. He says he wants to “work with computers”, hell I know more about computer science than he does.
Culturally the building trades are taking some hard hits, and if you think that is bad the plumbers have it a lot worse.
