We Need a Chorus of Voices to Tout the Skilled Trades

At HomeServe, we’re proud to be a customer-focused company built upon an unbeatable network of skilled trades professionals - plumbers, electricians and HVAC technicians. Our HomeServe employees and independent contractor partners are the backbone of our business and the reason our customers can count on exceptional service and expert repairs.?

Unfortunately, people just aren’t pursuing the skilled trades as a career choice. Simply put: the pipeline that produces these vital technicians is drying up. And that’s leaving America in a terribly bad situation. For starters, Baby Boomers began reaching retirement age in 2011 and roughly 10,000 are retiring each day through 2030. And COVID dramatically accelerated this retirement trend.??

When you look at younger generations, Gen Z – those born late 1990s to early 2010s who are now graduating from high school and college – aren’t going into the trades and, as a result, there was a 49% drop in young people seeking employment as plumbers, electricians and construction workers between 2020 and 2022. The demand for these workers far out surpasses the people available to do the job.?

We might not even realize the significance of this skilled trades gap until we have our own unexpected home repair emergency and need someone to come out right away to fix a problem. Imagine a sewer pipe backing up into your house or a broken heating system in the dead of winter … you need a technician FAST! But what if there is no one available to come out or they can’t come out for many days???

At HomeServe, we’re dependent on a strong supply of skilled technicians, so we take this challenge very seriously and are focused on encouraging more Americans to consider a career in the skilled trades. This could be a high school student considering what they’ll do after graduation; a member of the military transitioning out of the service; a college grad who has discovered they don’t like desk work; or anyone looking for a career change.?

Here are some great reasons why a career in the skilled trades deserves thoughtful consideration.??

• Most of these careers require two years or less of training before you can work in the field under supervision; that means you can get your training done quickly and be well on your way to a fulfilling career and a nice paycheck. Careers in the skilled trades are in high demand, often requiring two years or less of education to enter the field and offering good wages and the opportunity to eventually start your own business. Additionally, trade schools generally can be completed faster and at lower cost than a four-year degree. This is especially significant given that Americans owe nearly $1.8 trillion in student debt.??
• The salaries are excellent. The median annual wage for skilled technicians - plumbers, steam fitters, pipefitters, electricians and HVAC techs and installers – ranges from $50,000 to over $60,000. Many make even more – at HomeServe, our more experienced technicians make over six figures – and salaries continually increase with experience. In our 2023 State of the Home Survey, we found that many Americans drastically underestimate the starting salary for these workers with 25% thinking they would be $35,000 or less. Clearly there’s a lot of education that needs to be done to show how professionally AND financially fulfilling these careers can be!??
• The demand for skilled tradespeople will always exist. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that there will be 73,500 openings for electricians annually over a decade, growing by 6% from 2022 to 2032, faster than average. As long as people have homes, there will always be a need to get things fixed.??

All of this raises the question, what can we do????

• Recruit more women. Women make up less than 10% of skilled tradespeople, but they’ve been a part of the industry since World War II. Groups such as Girls Garage and Mentoring A Girl in Construction are doing a great job encouraging more women to pursue a career in the trades.??
• Increase BIPOC representation in the trades. Black tradespeople make up only 6.3% of the industry, while Latino tradespeople make up just over 30%. Targeting awareness, marketing and recruiting efforts toward these communities could pay dividends.??
• Recruit those looking for a career change. Millennials and Gen X’ers were typically encouraged to go to college and seek out white collar work. However, many are unfulfilled, underpaid and underemployed (in May, unemployment among Gen Z was 7.4%, twice the nation’s average at 3.7%). The high-demand, well-compensated skilled trades may be the answer for some.??
• Look for creative solutions. In the U.K., the trades gap is being addressed with apprenticeships in the skilled trades given degree status at schools while also providing work experience. The U.K. has looked at several ways to address the skilled trades gap, including the National Apprenticeship Service, a government agency that helps young people enter the skilled trades.???
• Educate high schoolers about careers in the skilled trades. High schools need to do a better job of sharing information with students about what a career in the skilled trades could look like. Our State of the Home Survey found that more than half of respondents did not think that the appropriate amount of attention was given in U.S. high schools to education about the skilled trades.??

Businesses that rely on skilled trades, like HomeServe, need to get some skin in the game by raising awareness and encouraging apprenticeships. Through our own employee feedback, we learned that our skilled tradespeople are looking for more opportunities for continuous improvement, so we’ve committed to and invested resources into more education, including a streamlined training program.?

Let’s join together to create a chorus of voices sharing the message about what a great option jobs in the skilled trades can be – rapid timeline from training to being on the job, great pay, lots of opportunity for professional growth, always in demand. Slowly but surely, as more people hear these facts, we can start filling our nation’s skilled trades labor gap. If we don’t, we all better start learning how to fix our own plumbing … and electrical … and HVAC!?

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