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As worries about artificial intelligence and high-profile layoffs shake the white-collar world, some Americans are looking to blue-collar work for more stability.
Doug, a skilled tradesman in his late 30s, knows that experience well.
Doug — whose last name and employment are known to Insider but withheld over his fear of professional repercussions — was finishing up college when the Great Recession hit and "the bottom fell out of the market," he said.
"I was trying to save up money to go to law school," he said. "When that happened, it was really just jarring how quickly so many people were losing their jobs." He called it a bloodbath.
It's an experience that might be hitting home for some workers feeling whiplash from seeing the "Great Resignation" and rising wages turn into high-profile layoffs and threats of an AI takeover. Blue-collar work remains a bright spot in the economic recovery, with plenty of available jobs, affordable training, more stability, and high pay. And, as some people continue their pandemic reckoning with what work means to them, it might become even more appealing.
Doug, for instance, found his new career lucrative compared with the hourly work he did to pay his way through school. Even better: He really enjoyed it. His past technical experience had been confined to tinkering with his old Toyota trucks as a teen; now, he was attending Marine engineering school and becoming certified as a qualified member of the engine department. He ended up also accruing certification from the Coast Guard that opened him up to even more gainful work.
By 2014, after hopping into a similar blue-collar union job, he said he was clearing around $120,000 to $130,000 a year.
Now, Doug has been a blue-collar worker for nearly 20 years. He said he'd consistently made a salary in the high five figures or low six figures throughout his career, alongside the benefits and pensions that union jobs afforded.
Plus, he's a homeowner.
"Having that skill set gave us the freedom to turn around, sell a house, buy a house, and get reestablished in a new state — in no time flat," he said.
That's a rarity in his generation, with 62% of millennials surveyed in Deloitte's sweeping 2023 Gen Z and Millennial Survey — which had over 22,000 respondents across the globe — saying that they expected homeownership to become more difficult or impossible to achieve.
"In the middle of all this economic turmoil and all this chaos and inflation going sideways and this and that and the other thing, the takeaway is that we've always lived pretty comfortably. We've always had that middle-class-life dream that a lot of people aspire to," he said.
Americans are increasingly rethinking whether college is worth it. With student debt stacking up, and enrollment declining, a career in the trades — like the one Doug pursued — might hold the appeal that college once did. After all, research has found that a worker without a college degree who has been in a union throughout their entire career is estimated to generally make more than their nonunion counterpart with a degree.
For Doug, the transition into being blue collar required some mental calibration, but he was drawn to the "dignity" of the tradespeople he saw in the field — especially in the middle of the brutal Great Recession.
"They had stability and a certain quality of life," he said.
Even going to law school, as he planned to do, might not bring that much of a payout, and it would likely come with little work-life balance. And once he started in the trades, he said, he felt a "lot more pride" in the work he was doing — and its tangible influence.
"It felt a lot more meaningful when you're working with your hands," he said, "when you're interfacing with these massive systems that have a direct effect on public safety."
Of course, he said, it's not easy work. It weighs on the body, and it requires constant proficiency and mastery of your skill set. You never stop learning, he said. While you'll probably never become a millionaire from the work, you can retire comfortably with a pension and strong health insurance.
And for Doug, it came with an epiphany.
"Before, it's like, I'm going to law school. I'm a student. I'm working part time doing this and that, not really knowing what the hell I'm doing or what the hell kind of law I want to even practice. I didn't even know that," he said. "It was just like, oh, well yeah, you're a middle-class kid. You graduated from high school with pretty good grades. You're going to college, and then you're going to get a job and an office somewhere doing the thing. It wasn't for me."
Have you made the shift to blue-collar work, or are you thinking about it? Contact this reporter at jkaplan@insider.com.
