Trade companies are increasingly hiring workers fresh out of high school to counter labor shortages caused by baby boomers retiring.
Skilled high school graduates can expect to immediately earn as much as $70,000 in professions such as plumbing, electrical work and welding.
Elijah Rios, 17, won’t be graduating until next year, but he already has a job lined up where he’ll make $68,000 annually.
Rios, a junior, is taking welding classes at Father Judge, a Catholic high school in Philadelphia that works with companies who want to bring on skilled tradespeople.
Rios will soon work as a fabricator at a local equipment manufacturer for nuclear, recycling and other sectors. His base compensation will be $24 per hour, but he’ll have regular overtime opportunities and paid vacation time.
‘Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming—like, this company wants you, that company wants you,’ Rios told The Wall Street Journal.
Rios grew up in Kensington, a notoriously rough Philadelphia neighborhood where drug addicts and homeless people roam the streets. He views the welding program as a way to create a better life for himself.
Still, like he said, it’s not without stress. He compared what he’s going through with these companies to how high school athletes are ruthlessly scouted by colleges.
A Father Judge student is pictured welding. The Catholic high school in Philadelphia puts a large emphasis on the trades in its curriculum
Elijah Rios, 17, is in Father Judge’s welding program and said he grew up in Kensington, a notoriously downtrodden neighborhood that plays host to drug addicts and homeless people (pictured)
As automation and artificial intelligence continues to spook younger generations when it comes to their future job prospects, more businesses are directly partnering with high schools to allow students to work part-time and earn money while attaining academic credits, the Journal reported.
More businesses are also making an intentional effort to show up at high school career days to entice young people with an adult paycheck as soon as they take off their cap and gown.
There isn’t much data on how successful this strategy has been, but it could be a respite for those who don’t fancy another four years in university classrooms and don’t want to go massively in debt.
According to an April 2024 study by McKinsey, annual hiring for roles like electricians, carpenters, ironworkers and more will exceed annual net new jobs by more than 20 times.
This essentially means the vast majority of the jobs companies are hiring for involve replacing a retiring veteran with a fresh-faced young person who lacks the same experience.
This will undoubtedly lead to companies spending millions more per year on training programs that will eat into their bottom line.
Despite three percent more Americans enrolling in vocational education since 2018, there is still a stigma associated with choosing a career in the trades over the traditional four-year university path. This is something companies in desperate need of new talent will have to contend with.
According to a 2023 Jobber survey, nearly 80 percent of students said their parents wanted them to pursue college after high school, whereas five percent of respondents said the same about trade school.
Bob Walker is the founder of Global Affinity, the manufacturing company that offered Rios a job. Walker likes hiring younger people who can operate his steel laser cutter (stock image), which requires a lot of technology know-how
Even Constellation Energy, a Fortune 500 company that operates nuclear power plants all over the US, needs to lean on the younger generations (Pictured: A Constellation-owned plant in Pottstown, Pennsylvania)
But so far, training burdens and the consistent snubbing of the trades is not stopping firms in that sector from aggressively pursuing high schoolers.
Among them is Bob Walker, founder of Global Affinity, the manufacturing company that offered Rios a job.
The equipment he uses requires plenty of tech-savvy, something young people often excel at. That’s certainly true of his steel laser cutter, a machine that retails for $1.7 million.
Annie Simon, recently a chief executive at a mechanical contractor in California, started a nonprofit summer program that introduces high school students to welding, plumbing, piping and other trades.
As executive director, she told the Journal 900 students will be enrolling in the camp this summer in 51 locations across the US. Most of the classes will be hosted by local contractors who many times hire campers after they graduate.
Jenny Cantrill, 18, was a camper and now works at Cannistraro, the plumbing and HVAC mechanical contractor that hosted her summer classes.
Even Constellation Energy, a Fortune 500 company that operates nuclear power plants all over the US, needs to lean on the younger generations.
High school graduates who don’t have four-year degrees are eligible to apply for maintenance technician and equipment-operator roles at Constellation that pay as much as six figures.
Welding instructor Joe Williams said that Philadelphia’s Father Judge, all 24 graduating seniors in his program have job offers paying $50,000 or more
Last year, Constellation introduced a learning program outside Chicago that offered high schoolers the chance to shadow workers at one of its nuclear facilities while also receiving community-college credit.
The company also sponsors SkillsUSA, an organization that puts together a week-long conference every year where students learning the trades to show their skills off to the hundreds of companies that attend.
If working at a big company is too overwhelming, there are also opportunities at the local level.
One example is D’Addario Automotive Group in Connecticut, which hires several high school students in its shop on a part-time basis.
Dan Schnaufer, service and body shop director the company, offers them academic credit for their work, which he gets to see first-hand, something that factors into the hiring process later on.
‘The idea of growing your own talent has gotten more critical in recent years, when you have fewer and fewer people going into this industry,’ Schnaufer told The Journal.
At his shop, fresh high school graduates can expect to make $50,000 a year. Within five years, that bumps up to six figures without a cent of college debt.
At Philadelphia’s Father Judge, all 24 graduating seniors in the welding program have job offers paying $50,000 or more, instructor Joe Williams said.
‘It feels good knowing we’re very, very much in demand,’ said Aiden Holland, a senior at the high school who’ll soon be making $75,000 a year as a submarine welder.
