Plumber or programmer? Trades workers close the job gap

Plumbers, electricians and pipe fitters with a two-year degree are more likely to be employed than four-year college graduates, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's a very new trend, reports Taylor Telford in the Washington Post.

Median pay for boilermakers is $73,000 a year.

“For decades, college graduates have typically faced lower unemployment rates, found jobs faster, and experienced more stable employment than high school graduates without college experience,” according to a 2025 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. But the college advantage has been eroding in recent years. Now it seems to have vanished.

While AI has taken some entry-level white-collar jobs, hurting new college graduates, demand is strong for blue-collar workers.

"Mean hourly wages for plumbers, pipe fitters, electricians and boilermakers — all of which typically require apprenticeships — eclipsed the overall hourly mean wage for U.S. workers in 2023, which was about $31.50," Telford writes. Elevator and escalator repair technicians averaged more than $48 an hour.

Education and skills still matter, says Jeff Strohl, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. The center’s “Future of Good Jobs” report predicts that 66 percent of workers with a four-year degree will be able to compete for "good" jobs -- with median pay of $82,000 -- in the next five years, compared to only 19 percent of workers with a vocational certificate or two-year degree.

However, schools went too far in pushing "college for all," Strohl told Telford. “What we didn’t do was set up viable alternative pathways for students to succeed, to the detriment of the economy and the detriment of those students.”

Enrollment is rising at community and technical colleges. Many young people are leery of taking out student loans and seeking AI-proof skills.