It makes sense, trade skills are seen "old" economy job and those people are ageing out and not enough people are taking their place, (which would normally be filled by migration) but from developed to developing nations we were all sold this dream of being office workers and keyboard crusaders of the digital age and have no skills just paper skills.

I do feel that the shortage is only temporary, 3D printing and robotics will gobble up a lot of trade work, no need to pay labour, health, workman's comp, it saves a tonne of money.

So I don't believe this blue-collar job shortage is a viable solution long term. I don't know if you've seen how they automating jobs out of smartphone manufacturers like they literally get engineers to study the engineers building the phone and then build computers and robots to do that complex work.

It's nuts how far we moving with productivity, the fact is technology is eating the world, I can see myself even being in tech could be out of a job in the near future and while i won't mind the leisure time and time to reskill or pursue something else, I'll need a type money that is going to last....