Looking for Mr. Goodwrench
By Kimberly Blanton | November 23, 2004Originally Published in the Boston Globe
Blue-collar jobs abound, but skilled workers are hard to find
Watertown - Rob Chermesino's college-educated friends went into finance and sales. His fiancée is a meeting planner, Chermesino picked up a wrench.
After a restless year at Northeastern University, he left to earn a two-year degree in automotive technology from Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology in Boston in 1996. Now employed by Direct Tire & Auto Service here the 29-year-old works on brakes, shocks, exhaust systems, and tune-ups.
"I'm the only one who works with my hands, " he said, opening grease-coated palms as an air gun shrieked, spinning lug nuts on a tire.
Just 4 percent of high school graduates pursue careers in technical fields, whether auto or boat mechanic, plumber, heating and air-conditioning technician, or factory workers. Mechanically minded young people are instead pushed by parents and guidance counselors to attend college or are pulled by the high-technology industry into a cutting- edge field.
"If they don't go to college and don't work in a cubicle," they think "they're not going to make it," said Joe Lamacchia, a Newton landscaping entrepreneur whose website, www.bluecollarandproudofit.com promotes employment in the trades.
Young adults ill-suited to desk work, he said, pass up opportunities to make good money in challenging blue-collar jobs.
"You can't mold them into the groove where they want everyone behind the desk or joining the math club."
At least 1 million US jobs, most of which do not require a four-year degree, went unfilled this year because employers could not find workers with the necessary skills, the National Center on Education and the Economy, a Washington organization that addresses worker training, estimates.
Homeowners have bumped up against shortages when they try to hire contractors unable to find enough people to do the work that comes in the door, though the end of major public construction projects in the Boston area, such as the Big Dig, has increased the supply of trades people locally. But scarcities return as the economy rebounds. By 2007, 25,000 or more US electrician jobs may go unfilled, the National Electrical Contractors Association estimates.
In Massachusetts, high vacancy rates currently exist among auto mechanics, carpenters, nurses' aides and precision machine operators on factory floors, said Andrew Sum, director of Northeastern's Center for Labor Market Studies. Manufacturers report great difficulty filling jobs requiring specialized talents or math skills. Shortages are expected to widen in occupations ranging from welder to repairman as these tasks increasingly rely on computers to operate precision laser equipment or diagnose car problems.
Economic theory says that wages will rise to bring supply in line with increasing demand. But the emphasis that educators place on a college degree has created a powerful cultural barrier: Manual labor is not cool. For example, the National Association of Manufacturers in nationwide focus groups with young adults found they have "a hostile, negative stereotype" of manufacturing jobs as "dark and dirty and dead-end and dangerous," said Phyllis Eisen, vice president.
After technical or on-the-job training, blue-collar workers with skills can earn at least $20 an hour. Experienced manufacturing workers can earn double that, with benefits. And good pay is often available much earlier in a skilled worker's career. But earnings over a working lifetime are unlikely to grow as much as a college graduate's salary, which may start out low but has more upside potential as they move up the corporate ladder. While an experienced, top-notch mechanic might make $70,000 a year, a top manager's salary can go into six figures.
There is one under appreciated advantage to skilled work: stable employment.
"A goof mechanic could get a job anywhere in the world," said Chermesino's boss at Direct Tire, Barry Steingberg.
Richard Leger, owner of Greaves Electric Co., in Needham, is so desperate to hire electricians he hangs signs at homes where crews are working; "Employment Opportunities Available." He looks for young people with a work ethic - they are not easy to find - he can train as apprentices. Leger, who is 33, believes he can explain the shortage: "Today's video game playing youth are not shown that there is manual labor required in the world."
One of his employees, Jerry McLaughlin, held a dead-end job in an electrical-supply warehouse when Leger, a friend of McLaughlin's cousin, called him about a job. McLaughlin, 27, joined Leger's firm six years ago and apprenticed with the boss.
The son of an auto mechanic and grocery store cashier, McLaughlin's high school classmates in Newton all seemed college bound. He struggled with college before finding a niche as an electrician, which presents challenges with each assignment.
College "was just the thing everyone was doing, and as far as I know that was how you made money," he said. "I think people still kind of look down on the blue-collar crowd."
Steinberg at Direct Tire resorted to a headhunter, a practice usually reserved for the white collar world to find 11 automotive technicians over the years.
"They're almost as difficult to get as brain surgeons," he said.
