By Suzanne Blake

Copyright newsweek

As artificial intelligence (AI) threatens previously stable careers, a whopping 62 percent of white-collar workers say they would switch to the skilled trades for more job stability and pay, according to a new report from FlexJobs.

Why It Matters

The trades have become a stable career option for many as the job market remains increasingly competitive for new college graduates and AI disrupts many industries.

While college degrees and white-collar work have historically been pushed as the better option to many high school graduates, the trades are attracting a high number of new adult workers in America.

What To Know

Roughly 62 percent of the more than 3,000 surveyed employees in the FlexJobs report said they would consider switching from a white-collar to a blue-collar job if it offered better pay and stability than their current role.

Another 45 percent of workers said they were thinking about switching fields entirely, and 44 percent said they daydreamed about starting a business.

“Today’s job market is going through a generational change, similar to when we left the farms for factories and later left the factories for offices,” Drew Powers, the founder of Illinois-based Powers Financial Group, told Newsweek. “Change creates dissatisfaction among workers, and dissatisfaction always leads to exploring new fields. There is also a growing rhetoric that exhorts the virtues of blue-collar labor. These two forces combined may have certain generations looking to leave their tumultuous white-collar careers to search for more stability in the blue-collar world.”

Throughout the workforce, spanning industries, 85 percent of employees say their career expectations have changed since they graduated.

Millennials were the most likely to report significant changes at 62 percent, followed by Gen X (59 percent) and baby boomers (54 percent). Around a quarter of boomers (23 percent) said their career expectations have stayed the same, more than double the rate of millennials (11 percent).

“There’s a misconception of many white-collar employees that the reason they avoid blue-collar jobs is, for a lack of a better phrase, they ‘don’t want to get their hands dirty,’” Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek.

“The reality is regardless of the color of the collar, employees are looking for job security and financial stability. With an abundance of economic uncertainty and the looming threat of AI for many lower level white-collar jobs, many workers are finding renewed interest in typical blue-collar fields that have a constant need for their services and, in some situations, actually carry better income over time.”

A “Help Wanted” sign for a mechanic and technician is posted in front of a gas station offering auto care services in Montebello, California, on February 3, 2022. (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

What People Are Saying

Kevin Thompson, the CEO of 9i Capital Group and the host of the 9innings podcast, told Newsweek: “Job markets are cyclical in nature and this is the effect of simple supply and demand. Wages in white collar jobs outpaced those of trade jobs for years which pushed the labor force away from those skilled trades. Now the low supply of labor is now pushing prices much higher in those trades which is attracting demand in those fields.”

Drew Powers, the founder of Illinois-based Powers Financial Group, told Newsweek: “What is forgotten here are the reasons why we left the farms and later the factories in the first place: these are physically taxing careers. It is rare that these jobs can be done into the advanced ages Gen Z will require to retire. The Greatest Generation could work for 30 years in the factories, retire in their early- to mid-fifties, enjoy lifetime healthcare, a pension, and a short time later Medicare and Social Security.”

“This scenario no longer exists. Pensions have all but disappeared. Lifetime healthcare is gone. Social Security is seemingly on the brink of failure. Gen Z may find their bodies give out before they can reach an age to retire comfortably, and this reality needs to be considered before making a switch.”

Michael Ryan, a finance expert and the founder of MichaelRyanMoney.com, told Newsweek: “Scarcity creates pricing power. When 5 electricians retire for every 2 entering the field, you don’t need an MBA to understand who holds the leverage.

College degrees have become commodities while specialized skills command premiums. We’ve effectively reversed the 20th century bargain: A $200k education now leads to entry level salaries that skilled trades workers often surpass within five years of apprenticeship. Without the debt burden.”

HR consultant Bryan Driscoll told Newsweek: “This shift says more about the white-collar system than it does about the trades. Workers aren’t runni…