America did this to itself. For more then 2 decades, young people have been told not to get into trade industry's.
The result was a society that looked down on people that worked in trades and assumed they were lower class people.
The owners of business did not help at all. Office jobs came with more pay, prestige and benefits then masters of a trade.
Those of us that were skilled in the trade, had to put up with, fighting to get a token of a raise and ever decreasing working conditions.
We had no other option.
Now as more and more skilled trades people retire, or move into site management, companies cannot find anyone to replace them.
The auto industry is in big trouble. I read a report yesterday that the current demand for new techs is 75,000 per year and only 32,000 techs per year are entering the field.
To make it worse, only 20,000 of those 32,000 make it to their first year.
Unless something drastically changes, in ten years it will be near impossible to get your car fixed. The manufacturer's will buy up any techs they can find just for their own warranty repairs.
Of course that drastic expense will be built into the price of a new car.
It is going to get rough for anybody that cannot do their own plumbing, electrical HVAC or mechanical repairs.
