WHEN I FIRST BECAME EDITOR of Grading and Excavation Contractor magazine, I had the opportunity to meet Mike Rowe. You might remember him as the host of the TV show Dirty Jobs. He has narrated hundreds of documentaries and is currently host of the CNN TV show Somebody’s Got To Do It. When I met him he was heavily campaigning to narrow the widening skills gap and reinvigorate the skilled trades.
Rowe even testified in front of the US Senate Commerce Committee about the importance of changing the perceptions and stereotypes around blue-collar work. He started the MikeRoweWORKS Foundation, which gives out Work Ethic scholarships and advocates for American manufacturing.
What I find most intriguing about Mike Rowe’s message is his call for changing perceptions.
Manufacturers of heavy equipment are implementing new technology seemingly every day that makes dirt moving not only more efficient, but also makes the iron much easier to use. The skills gap is a big reason why manufacturers are making the machines easier to learn how to use and, of course, easier to use period. But who is going to operate this heavy equipment? We’re going to have to ask Millenials to do it.
Shalina Chatlani, of the website Construction Dive, writes:
Addressing the challenges of a radically different labor force will be critical to maintaining the national economy, according to Martha Ross, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, in her article on diversity in the labor market.
“Recent related work shows that by their early 20s, young white adults are more than twice as likely as their black and Latino peers to have earned a bachelor’s degree . . . it’s not surprising that young blacks and Latinos have higher unemployment rates than whites,” wrote Ross, who credited the statistic to a strong correlation between education and employment, as well as pre-existing forms of discrimination in hiring.
“. . . It’s clear that increasing the skills, educational attainment, and employment rates among young people of color is a major challenge facing both the nation and individual metropolitan labor markets,” she wrote.
Chatlani also goes on to quote Greg Sizemore, ABC’s Vice President of Safety, Health, Environment, and Workforce Development.
“One of the things we face in terms of challenges is attracting millennials to the industry. That is going to take a mindset shift in terms of parents promoting our industry as a viable career of choice, not a second career choice,” Sizemore added. “It has to be viewed not as an alternative to college, but as an equal to college. This is a career that is an equal in necessity of skill, talent, ability, and knowledge as any four-year degree institution.” ( http://bit.ly/2b0u49I )
In one of their latest employment reports, the Association of General Contractors says that while there have been recent increases in construction employment, those gains are becoming less widespread because qualified workers are becoming harder and harder to find. It is not a matter of job availability. It is a matter of employability.
Association officials said the latest employment figures underscore the need to reinvigorate high school-level training programs to encourage more students to pursue construction careers. They are urging Congress to act on legislation to reform and increase federal funding for career and technical education to encourage more high school students to pursue high-paying careers in construction.
My dad calls the men and women who build, repair, and maintain our infrastructure the “backbone” of the nation. That has always been his perception. He raised me, so that it is also mine. Not enough people share our same view.
So, my question is: are we going to continue to make machine technology more advanced and cutting edge, while we do nothing to change the way dirt movers, construction workers, and so on are perceived as inferior contributing members of society?
If we do, we just might innovate our way to erasing an entire workforce by replacing it with an autonomous one.
