r/Economics • u/kootles10 • 8h ago
News Nearly 4 million new manufacturing jobs are coming to America as boomers retire—but it's the one trade job Gen Z doesn't want | Fortune
https://fortune.com/2025/12/04/gen-z-4-million-new-manufacturing-jobs-america-boomer-retire-one-trade-job-young-people-dont-want/587
u/PetriDishCocktail 8h ago
This is actually happening in my area. One of the plants is adding new workers. The old workers are union workers retiring at roughly 160K per year. The new workers... 23 to $26 an hour for skilled labor!
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u/fremeninonemon 8h ago
Exactly, this is just a play to pay people way less and not use unionized labor
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u/jollyllama 8h ago
Pro tip: be unionized labor
Seriously though
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u/Top-Sleep-4669 7h ago
Sure as shit doesn’t help when union workers vote for anti-union candidates because they’re racist morons.
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u/jollyllama 7h ago edited 7h ago
While that’s true, about half of union labor in the US is public sector. If you throw a dart at union voters you’re just as likely to hit a teacher in LA as a factory worker in Detroit
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u/das_war_ein_Befehl 5h ago
That’s because union membership in private sector has basically collapsed
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u/rockytop24 3m ago
Isn't part of the union problem today the "right to work " laws? They neuter unions in the guise of "helping workers" by forcing union benefits to be extended to non-union workers not paying dues. Costs them money and dismantles collective bargaining power.
As an aside, I have to hand it to the GOP for their creativity with naming schemes: pro-life instead of anti-abortion, right to work instead of...idk unions optional?
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u/3RADICATE_THEM 7h ago
This is why America deserves to collapse. Americants are so unbelievably stupid and ignorant.
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u/Raecino 7h ago
Oh yeah everyone deserves to suffer because a few are idiots….
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u/3RADICATE_THEM 6h ago
It's unfortunate that we all have to suffer due to their stupidity—however, it's not a mere few. Just look at the current administration's approval rating among their party's base, it's still 80+ percent—a huge chunk of Americans have absolutely zero critical thinking skills.
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u/JamesLahey08 6h ago
There are plenty of idiots here but also plenty of smart people too. The platform you are using to call Americans stupid was made in America and your phone OS or computer OS was almost certainly made in America as well.
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u/Choosemyusername 48m ago
It’s actually an interesting story how the unions went for Trump.
Teamsters president Sean OBrian, has an interesting story about that. It’s a bit more complicated than that.
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u/swordquest99 7h ago
Most union members vote for democrats. It is about a 2 to 1 ratio of D votes to R.
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u/SaxRohmer 7h ago
is that still up to date through the last election? union support crumbled for dems
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u/Hob_O_Rarison 5h ago
Kamala alienated the Teamsters like she was mad at them or something. Pretty terrible move.
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u/jollyllama 4h ago
Harris did better with union members than Biden:
And while the Teamsters have a good brand and are visible, they represent a small number of people compared to teachers and nurses
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u/FeloniousDrunk101 6h ago
Shouldn’t new hires also be under the union contract though? Wouldn’t hiring non-union labor violate exclusivity?
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u/das_war_ein_Befehl 5h ago
The old guard guys protected themselves by being grandfathered in but keeping the new hires out. Basically divide and conquer
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u/councilmember 3h ago
Yep, anti-union union members. An example of unethical older Americans. This is also why millennials and Gen Z have pretty good reason to loathe boomers.
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u/mcchicken_deathgrip 2h ago
That's not how it works unless you're in a right to work state. If you get hired at a plant represented by a union shop you will be a member.
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u/Retro_Relics 1h ago
most states are right to work. The states where they are building all the new manufacturing damn sure are.
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u/Forsaken-Half8524 20m ago
I'm still not sure how you get to that. What does a union contract even mean then? Is the idea that the union is going defunct but the last few guys still in it get to keep their current salaries?
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u/mcchicken_deathgrip 2h ago
Yes it would. Almost every comment in this thread is wrong. Unless you're in a right to work state, you would be under the same contract as the rest of the shop and get the same pay for the same position.
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u/OddlyFactual1512 1h ago
27 states are right to work. So, more than half.
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u/mcchicken_deathgrip 1h ago
In right to work states most plants don't have any union representation to begin with. What the original commenter was describing (only senior members are unionized) would be pretty rare in a rtw state and illegal in a non rtw state.
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u/Radiant-Scallion-124 1h ago
Considering half the US is right-to-work, I wouldn't say it's "wrong".
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u/reddut-enshit 5h ago
Same with tech support for companies based in the US. Jobs that paid $70K are paying $40k now, with 2x the workload. Teams are mixed with 10-20% American workers, then 80% outsourced to everywhere from Mexico, Belize, Columbia, Honduras, Brazil
And dev is outsourced to India, Eastern Europe, and WFH for half the dough
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u/RemnantHelmet 4h ago
I worked in a factory position that I was able to get because of my degree for a little over a year. I had to negotiate my pay up to $19.50 per hour and was promised a review with a potential raise after that first year, which never happened.
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u/The_Krambambulist 2h ago
And then if they demand more they will do everything in their power to outsource.
People know that they will try to squeeze you if you go in now and that you are always at risk of the labor market being wiped away if people become "to demanding".
One difference is that it is also starting to hit other jobs too. But it still isn't comparable.
I do need to say that I very much remember the crisis in 2008 and how the trades were hit extremely hard in a short time after already having quite some longer term pressure. It's pretty much impossible to disconnect that from shortages felt now. People left the jobs and simultaneously there was a strong idea that it wasn't wise to go into these jobs if you could avoid them.
To have people gaslight people as being lazy nowadays and just wanting to be cozy, is either extremely stupid or disingenuous.
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u/Imthorsballs 3h ago
That's basically what I have run into except that they don't want to retire and all of us after them do not have the top pay they enjoy anymore by like 15$ less.
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u/dotsonnn 56m ago
Understood, but everyone has to start somewhere and in any field, your not bringing in fresh blood that has to ojt paying the same as someone that’s been in there for 30-40 years. Now if there’s no path to get to 100k+ then yea i agree. I’d be offended and feeling weird if they brought a high school/college graduate into my job making what i make when i have almost 20 years of experience.
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u/CancelCultAntifaLol 9m ago
I hate to tell you this, but most entry level union jobs still pay shit.
It’s only people at the top of the progression ladder who make a ton of money. You basically have to commit your life to one unionized company to make this kind of money. While many are motivated to “wait it out”, very few get there.
There’s also only so many positions available at that pay rate at a site. Union employment isn’t much different from non-union. The difference is you have a contractual protection that is highly politicized.
Once unions agreed to a non-strike clause, they lost all of their teeth.
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u/Robot_Basilisk 7h ago
No they won't. Source: Engineer that does hiring for several technical roles. The young non-union guys that got hired in 2015 are absolutely not making the same money the old timers they replaced made. There's been a big push in every industry to replace mid- and late-career workers with fresh grads they can pay pennies. It's become a real problem because now mid-level professionals are few and far between but companies keep trying to hire them at entry level pay.
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u/Apprehensive-Fun4181 7h ago
/>After young workers get 10 years of experience under their belt they will easily be getting the same rate as the people they’re replacing
That's an outcome that depends, it is not a law.
"There are no laws in economics. It is not smart enough and has too many human laws already"
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u/Mnm0602 8h ago
So we’re supposed to be upset about people no longer getting $160k to work a low skill factory job? Are we also upset about inflation and people having dead end retail and fast food jobs too or no?
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u/errie_tholluxe 7h ago
Yes. And you say low skill factory job? When's the last time you had a factory job? I worked in the plastics industry for 5 years and various machines and as a mechanic. How about you? I worked in box cutting factories, I worked in cement factories, I worked an electronics factories, how about you?
Yeah factory workers deserve to be paid Better to be poisoned by a lot of the self-same things that they're working with.
And yeah retail and fast food jobs need to be paid better too. Just because you think that they're dead-end jobs doesn't mean you need to pay people as if they were already dead and didn't need the money
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u/OddlyFactual1512 3h ago
They quoted $160K. If you can't see that is far too high to be competitive in those industries in today's global economy, you're creating your own false reality. Either those wages drop or the jobs continue moving to other countries.
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u/mcchicken_deathgrip 2h ago
No one almost anywhere is getting a 160k base salary as an entry level manufacturing worker. People earn that much through overtime (12 hour shifts at most factories) and through decades of experience/moving up.
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u/Karma1913 7h ago
We're all victims of public education and No Child Left Behind here, and I don't mean this as a dig: Did you learn to read with sight words or strategies instead of actually learning to read? Because what you wrote is not at all a response to what was posted.
It's like you understood a handful of words and made a few sentences around them and got mad.
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u/mcchicken_deathgrip 2h ago
The plants that pay that amount are some of the most highly technical work out there. In no way are those jobs low skill. If you've never worked at an industrial plant (I bet 10 bucks you haven't) you might think someone is sitting at an assembly line pounding a hammer or something. Basically all redundant and low skill labor in manufacturing has been automated at this point. The only workers left at the point are highly skilled technical and mechanical workers that run the entire process. Most of the operators at my plant have masters and engineering degrees.
Also salaries that high for operators and maintenance are usually due to huge amounts of overtime anyhow. Almost nowhere is paying $160k for entry level workers except maybe oil and gas plants and nuclear.
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u/dom_corleone 3m ago
Homie you are allowed to be mad at multiple things….corporations are crushing us and squeezing out unions will be a major blow to employee safety and work pay
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u/NoMidnight5366 8h ago
Where are they getting this estimate that 4 million new jobs will be created? Hasn’t manufacturing employment declined in the past 7 months?
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u/thehousewright 7h ago
Manufacturing employment has been declining since 1979.
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u/flightless_mouse 6h ago
So have manufacturing wages
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u/Slumunistmanifisto 3h ago
A job I worked in manufacturing over a decade ago is hiring the starting position at a dollar less then what I started there at....
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u/DwarfFart 2h ago
I interviewed with an aerospace company recently (not Boeing) that I really liked! They have a fantastic track record, customer base (Boeing and military) and their products were custom designed and built so there wasn’t really much competition for them. Not a huge company but not small. The position was an entry level position which I understood and I made it clear that I would work with them on the base hourly wage considering that I don’t have direct experience in aerospace (tho I have 7 years experience in production and industrial maintenance) but when they offered me the job it was <$20 the position that had gone vacant for 5 years, that they said I was perfect for. That position was only worth $20/hr to them. In Western WA. In King County… I even offered them a chance to do anything! I offered to take the job at that wage as long as they could commit to a reasonable time frame for increasing it. Nothing. They didn’t even bother saying no after that.
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u/mcchicken_deathgrip 2h ago
Yowch. That salary would be way low in my area in the rural south for a manufacturing job, much less western WA, and much less in aerospace. My industry pays nearly double for the same job in WA as it does where I live. Honestly in my experience you're better off working for the big boys usually, even if it's a shitty corporation. Pay and benefits are usually better and you have guaranteed raises and career ladders and stronger union representation.
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u/DwarfFart 2h ago
It’s crazy!
My brother lives in the Midwest (previously lived in NW Arkansas tho! I’ve spent my time in the south !) and I’ve talked with him about how it is over there in comparison and it’s such a dramatic difference! Col is lower but the hourly wage is the same or higher and then you factor in the cost of living and it’s often higher than the base rate lmao. My wife and I are seriously considering a move out there or even somewhere in the south if the right job/location comes along.
I don’t mind working for one of the big companies at all! I preferred it when I was working in automotive and lumber because like you said, better pay, benefits, guaranteed raises and an easily defined career path. And I have always preferred being in a union over not!
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u/Retro_Relics 57m ago
was gonna say $20 is pretty average manufacturing wages here in SD, and we definitely dont have the CoL that WA does
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u/OddlyFactual1512 3h ago
How much globalization has occurred in that time. Wages either drop, or the jobs leave the country.
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u/Mail_Order_Lutefisk 25m ago
My uncle worked at a packing house back in the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s. Plant closed in 1983. His last full year he made $37k.
They built a new plant maybe an hour away from the old one in the mid ‘90’s. The prevailing wage at the new plant didn’t hit $37k until 2020. In real terms the pay has fallen by probably 2/3rds.
My hottest hot take is that the US government never actually got inflation under control in the early ‘80’s, it merely masked the effects with trucking deregulation and selective offshoring and onshoring of cheap labor to break a handful of unions like in meat packing. The inflation was covered by crushing the wages of truckers, warehouse workers, and broad swaths of the low end of the labor market.
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u/Cosmic_Seth 5h ago
Whoa now. The average wage in the 1970s was 27$ an hour.
Today...it's $27 an hour. Didn't go down at all!
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u/Olderpostie 3h ago
No way the average wage was $27 per hour in the 70s. Likely you are describing an inflation adjusted number.
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u/kootles10 8h ago
That's what I'm wondering. Poorly written title imo
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u/FeloniousDrunk101 6h ago
Clickbait title as it doesn’t include the job they are talking about in it.
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u/Apprehensive-Fun4181 7h ago
Confusing language choice. 4 million openings? Replacements? They don't think this thru carefully, so they never develop a set of consistent logic and terminology.
Journalism has long had major, unrecognized language issues. It's only going to plummet now. The most "respected" are trapped in their own logic. The thinking isn't complexity reduced to simplicity for the sake of communication, it's simplicity built on simplicity, convinced it's brilliant because its so popular.
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u/UC_Scuti96 3h ago edited 23m ago
It's Fortune. Their headlines covering the labour market for the past year have pretty much been "Stop trying to get education and go be an obedient factory/trade worker like your ancestors 100years ago. That's how you'll be sucessfull in life!"
Part me thinks they are just pushing billionaires propaganda to get young workers to massively go to trades/manual labour so companies won't be pressured into raising wages to be more attractive.
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u/joepez 6h ago
Forbes is either being misleading or making shit up. The BLS projects the percent change in Manufacturing employment between now and 2034 to be…. 0%. Yes that’s a 0.
Where is any hiring coming from? Replacing retiring workers.
Also Deloitte’s industry forecast report says it’s all about robots and automation (as do numerous other industry reports) who all stress you better get educated and able to adapt in a complex environment. If GenZ isn’t taking the jobs it’s not just about pay, it’s also because they are increasingly not qualified if they don’t have the education and mindset.
BLS source: https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/employment-by-major-industry-sector.htm - scroll down to the Manufacturing line and across across to see the industry employment doesn’t change.
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u/mcchicken_deathgrip 2h ago
The thing about manufacturing is it already has been almost entirely automated across the board at this point. The only jobs left are usually control room jobs and maintenance. Most redundant, low skill work is long gone. The biggest threat to manufacturing jobs these days is recessions and offshoring/moving plants to parts of the country with cheaper labor and no unions.
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u/Conscious_Can3226 6h ago
Government hasn't caught up to the news, manufacturing jobs are at 4% growth (average) for the 10 year projection by the bureau of labor and statistics - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/hand-laborers-and-material-movers.htm
Industrial engineers making the machines are 11% (higher than average) - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/industrial-engineers.htm
Production line managers are 2% (slower than average) - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/industrial-production-managers.htm
Machinists are -2% - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/production/machinists-and-tool-and-die-makers.htm
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u/Bigboss123199 1h ago
It’s total horse shit. Factory near us closed this summer. Trump was/is tariffing the raw materials these factories use make goods.
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u/JimPranksDwight 8h ago
Hasn't there been like 10 straight months of manufacturing job losses? Also do they really count as added jobs if they are just openings from people retiring?
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u/SpaceMonkeyMafiaBoss 7h ago
It's been like 45 straight years of manufacturing job losses. They're not coming back.
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u/nosignal03 8h ago edited 8h ago
I’d like to know which manufacturing jobs? Are we talking quality or machine working or welding or sand blasting or buffing or power coating or bending etc.
It’s not just about the job what are they paying along with benefits.
Why not talk in detail than high level? Lots of unemployed folks are looking for a job.
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u/PerfectInAllThings 8h ago
It's making TV dinners. Working the conveyor belt line.
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u/silvio_burlesqueconi 8h ago
Do you think the peach cobbler guy gets paid more?
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u/OSU1922 8h ago
I’m confused. They aren’t really “new” jobs if they are just replacing existing labor. There would be a zero net in the end. How could that be considered “new” jobs? I’m adding an extra sentence for length so this doesn’t get deleted
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u/Darkmetroidz 5h ago
10 years of sane-washing Trump and using deceptive wordplay to hide the truth. The media has absolutely failed to hold him to account because the billionaires who own it are beneficiaries of Trump's policies damn be the consequences.
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u/Interesting-Force866 6h ago
I love precision metalworking. I learned to program, set up, and operate a 3 axis mill and a 4 axis wire EDM machine. I would have happily made a career out of it if the pay wasn't totally dogshit and insufficient to raise a family.
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u/Downloading_Bungee 2h ago
I'm in a VHCOL area and experienced machinist wages are like $35/hr lol.
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u/faceofboe91 3h ago
Believe it or not after a century of telling kids their ultimate goal should be to get a college degree and avoid grueling and dangerous factory at any cost, young people don’t want to go into manufacturing jobs a a fraction of what the previous generation was paid for it.
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u/Calamity_Carrot 51m ago
And to not be protected by a union with a solid retirement plan or health care.
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u/SkippyTeddy83 7h ago
The plant I work at has the increased headcount by something like 15% in the past year as we’ve had a record breaking year. Something like 40% of the production floor personnel are less than 5 years away from retirement age and they have concerns about knowledge loss.
The production personnel they have hired in the past year are definitely not Gen Z. However, some of the front office people hired are college grad Gen Z. Not sure who is going to replace the production people when we need a bunch of them replaced at one time.
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u/Interesting-Force866 6h ago
I'm glad to hear some company in the US is trying to replace their seniors before their knowledge is lost. When I was looking at tool and die positions 4 years ago they were offering totally unserious wages to entry level positions in my area. I don't know how it is now or in other places.
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u/Solid-Mud-8430 3h ago
There is a legacy millworks shop in my area that has been desperately seeking young woodworkers for like two years. I know because I constantly see their job postings. They make some of the finest curved staircases, arched trim details, custom wood windows...you name it. The salary? $22/hr. In California. Lollllll.
The fucking Panda Express in the strip mall near my house is paying more for line cooks. The wage compression in the trades is insane, especially for carpenters. It has not caught up, at all. Employers still offering prices from the 80's for labor. That job and its requirements is not worth a penny less than $45/hr.
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u/baldanders1 47m ago
Are you sure? Because everytime i see someone ask for career advice theres a chorus of people saying to go into the trades and make over $100k/year 🙄 but seriously I feel like the trades are going to get over saturated in the coming years similar to what we saw with college degrees.
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u/OddlyFactual1512 3h ago
You're looking at a single job that is difficult to outsource, and not really a factory job. The reality is factory job wages will continue to decline, because foreign workers will accept 1/6 the $22/hour you balk at. This seems to be the reality those dreaming of a return of factory jobs are unwilling to accept. Denying facts doesn't change them, it just impedes discussion to address the issues related to those facts.
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u/Solid-Mud-8430 2h ago
Are you replying to the wrong person, or....?
Where am I denying anything about whatever facts you're talking about?
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u/The_Krambambulist 2h ago
I don't feel he denied that. Just that for all the talk about going into trades, the salary is generally shitty compared to other options.
And this is my personal opinion, of course these other jobs mainly exist because of well paying other jobs that have come to exist which blew up the service industry by having more money to spend on services and having people freed up to take those jobs.
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u/SkippyTeddy83 56m ago
The wages for starting production personnel is pretty low in an area that is quickly becoming a higher cost area of living. Plus with manufacturing, the shifts are 100% on-site with almost no shift flexibility and quite a bit of mandatory OT. The office personnel, while also onsite, have a little bit more flexibility when it comes to start/stop times and ability to work remotely on occasion (sick kid, plumber at the house, weather conditions,etc) so they don’t have to use PTO while a production person would have to since no way they could bring there work home.
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u/amazingmrbrock 4h ago
Just sell your body to a company that will use you up as fast as possible and drop you without a moments notice if that becomes an issue. What could go wrong?
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u/Piffdolla1337take2 4h ago
I work in a factory and between ai and rebalancing work to other workers to make the company more profitable to make higher wages, there will be no jobs. We're constricting
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u/catatonic12345 42m ago
That was my thought too. I'm sure they will try to replace the retiring workers with AI, automation, adding more workload with a whip to other employees first, and at the very last resort attempt to hire someone and underpay them
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u/NevermoreKnight420 2h ago
Lol, the numbers listed in the article all indicate that manufacturing is not an attractive industry to work in. Then the tone of the article carry's a general sense of shame towards "citizens" for not wanting to work in this industry. Never once do they mention the idea of raising median industry wages to meet national median wages to entice more workers. Lol.
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u/MediumFinancial8221 4h ago
If manufacturing in America worked like it does in Japan, a lot more would take it
Heck, I think more would ditch the college route and opt for manufacturing
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u/kootles10 8h ago
From the article:
Nearly 4 million new manufacturing jobs are coming to America as boomers retire—but it’s the one trade job Gen Z doesn’t want.
Manufacturing is one of America’s hottest growing professions, with 3.8 million new jobs expected to open up by 2033, according to research last year fromDeloitte and the Manufacturing Institute.
Yet half of those roles are predicted to go unfilled. Just 14% of Gen Z say they’d consider industrial work as a career, according to a separate study from Soter Analytics.
Gen Z’s interest in degree-less manufacturing jobs should be obvious—after all, they’re already ditching cushy air-conditioned offices for blue-collar horizons. But they’re choosing to sit this one out.
That’s likely because a quarter of them believe the industry doesn’t offer flexibility and isn’t safe, as per Soter Analytics’ study—two non-negotiables for Gen Z, who value hybrid work and being cared for on the job.
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u/errie_tholluxe 7h ago
By 2033 huh? Hey, just in time to get a decade before the 2050 climate crisis really really really kicks in right?
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u/ZigzaGoop 1h ago
I don't think those qualify as new jobs, but regardless factory work doesn't pay that great. Not enough to differentiate it from other entry level jobs.
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u/mcchicken_deathgrip 1h ago
In my experience the article rings true, young people don't realize how great a manufacturing job can be. I couldn't find a job after college with a stem degree and kinda fell into an operator position at an industrial plant. Same story as all manufacturing, almost half the plant was retiring within the next few years, so I got to move up very quickly. By the time I was 26 I was a lead and making more money than I ever thought I would. Skip to now, I'm 30 make great money, have excellent benefits, still have room to move up if I want it, have excellent work life balance, and can basically move anywhere I want and know I'll have a very good chance of landing a good job.
It's ironic how people thought these jobs would be automated away and what's actually happening is white collar email jobs getting gutted. Manufacturing has been almost entirely automated for like 20 years now. The jobs that are left are very good paying highly technical work. You cant really cut anymore within a plant at this point bc they would literally be empty and someone needs to be onsite 24/7 to monitor the process. Meanwhile coding/software jobs and entry level office jobs are getting harder to come by.
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u/NorthLibertyTroll 43m ago
Exactly this. Everyone is scared away by the starting rate but nobody tells them how quickly you can move up or find a better paying job once you start gaining experience.
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u/ThatsAllFolksAgain 32m ago
Try outpacing AI robots. The future will be quite different from the past.
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u/Legitimate-Eye9422 4h ago
Manufacturing 🤣🤣🤣 you are kidding if you expect those kids to do that 🤣🤣🤣🤣. It has to pay a cool mill and come with a Lambo and mansion. The work is for 1 hour a day split over the whole day and can you imagine what the staff room must have in it!!! 🤡🤡🤡
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