Demand For Skilled Trades Will Only Increase Over the Next Decade, But Preparation Is Not Keeping Pace: Report

Skilled trade jobs will continue to climb over the next years in the U.S., but the country is not producing enough workers to fill them at the moment, according to a new report.

Concretely, the State of America’s Skilled Trades report detailed that there will be 1.7 million job openings per year through 2035, including plumbers, electricians and carpenters. There will be 600,000 net new jobs.

The document went on to detail that needs will vary depending on occupations and place and responses will have to be “tailored to local demand, workforce conditions, and training capacity.”

Elsewhere, the report said that “too many potential workers are lost between preparation and careers.” Less than half of the people who begin apprenticeships complete them, and less than 30% enter a trade occupation within five years.

About a quarter of skilled trades workers across all titles included are 55 or older, but workers under 25 represent slightly more than 10% of the workforce.

“One in 12 trade jobs needs to be replaced in just the next five years,” Matt Sigelman, the president of the Burning Glass Institute, which contributed to the report, told CNBC.

The need for skilled trades collides with the most recent jobs report, which showed that private payrolls increased by 29,000 in September, well below expectations, while the unemployment rate climbed.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected nonfarm payrolls to increase by 84,000, with the unemployment rate holding at 4.1%. Health care, construction and manufacturing led the gains, while financial activities fell.

The figures are a sizable slowdown from August. And that month’s figures were revised lower to 133,000. July’s numbers were also changed, going from a gain to a loss of 10,000. Overall, the revisions showed 60,000 fewer jobs that previously reported.

Payroll growth has been volatile through much of this year, even as the unemployment rate has moved relatively little.

At the same time, the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index fell to a record low in September, the third time it has reached a new low this year.

Just 42.9% of employees who submitted reviews to Glassdoor reported a positive six-month outlook for their employer, down from a revised 44.5% in August.

Glassdoor Chief Economist Daniel Zhao said concerns over job security, economic uncertainty and inflation had weighed on sentiment.

Mentions of AI in employee reviews were up 164% from a year earlier, while references to uncertainty rose 84%, inflation increased 22% and layoffs were mentioned 13% more often, according to Glassdoor.