A section of Sentry Equipment Co.'s plant in Wisconsin

Talent

Perception of Manufacturing Trade Work Trails Many Other Sectors

Oct. 3, 2024

The 2024 Perception of the Trades report from Endeavor Business Intelligence shows households cooling on the idea of working on machinery or welding.

Geert De Lombaerde

Manufacturing leaders looking to bring in the next generation of trade workers have their work cut out for them.

That’s not a huge new development but it is a major takeaway from the new 2024 Perception of the Trades survey of nearly 25,000 households’ attitudes to having a child or other family member start a career in the trades. While nearly 80% of survey respondents who were discussing possible career paths told IndustryWeek’s colleagues at Endeavor Business Intelligence that they would be ‘extremely likely’ to recommend a trade career to young people, only about one-third of people would strongly encourage their young adults to become an industrial machinery mechanic, welder or mobile heavy equipment mechanic.

It’s not unusual to see a gap between people’s general perception of trade careers and their view of specific job types. Overall perception of trade work jumped coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and has improved steadily since 2022. Households’ highest-rated career choice this year, as it was in 2022 and 2023, is aircraft maintenance—but even its 59% score was 20 points below that of trade work overall.

One of the findings from this year's Perception of the Trades. To download the report, click on the link at the bottom of this story.

EBI researchers asked about 14 different trades. Coming in second and third behind aircraft repair work were automotive technicians and brick masons; they were the only other careers that received more than 40% ‘extremely likely to recommend’ responses. In manufacturing, the idea of being a welder scored well in about 34% of households—about 2 points below the overall average—while working on industrial machinery scored 30.9% and being a mobile heavy equipment mechanic was rated highly by 29.6%. That put it ahead of only oil and gas rotary drill operator among the 14 options.

The trend over recent years also isn’t favorable for these three trades: Their average ‘extremely likely to recommend’ score this year of 31.6% is down from 34.5% in 2023 and about 42% in 2022.

How to begin to close that larger-than-other-industries gap?

Mikaela Gitto, director of human resources at Wisconsin-based Sentry Equipment, said a key to converting the general interest in the trades into actual hires is spending time on educating both generations involved in career choices. It’s not just about speaking to young people with an enthusiasm for trade work but also about speaking to parents who might still view the trades as dangerous and/or dirty and long ago placed a high priority on college educations.

Mikaela Gotto directs Sentry Equipment's HR team.

“So much has changed from a couple of decades ago,” said Gitto, who helps managers recruit for openings Sentry has in the Badger State as well as at locations in the Salt Lake City and Houston areas. “Plants are cleaner, safer and use much more robotics. That’s really appealing to young people.”

Sentry, which makes sampling and automation equipment as well as machinery used by wastewater and oil and gas companies, also invests time and energy in programs that help convey Gitto’s message. In addition to regularly hosting tours of high school students, it has partnered with GPS Education Partners, a nonprofit that has built work-based learning programs that function a lot like community colleges’ dual-enrollment programs.

Gitto said Sentry takes on interested students, some as young as sophomores, on part-time paid internships and trains them in numerous roles at its plants over the course of several months. The company has hired several of the students that have come to it via the partnership with GPS.

For a broader view of the Perception of the Trades report, visit fellow Endeavor brand AviationPros. And to download the full report, head over to this page of Endeavor Business Intelligence's site.

About the Author

Geert De Lombaerde | Senior Editor

A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has been in business journalism since the mid-1990s and writes about public companies, markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications, focusing on IndustryWeek, FleetOwner, Oil & Gas Journal, T&D World and Healthcare Innovation. He also curates the twice-monthly Market Moves Strategy newsletter that showcases Endeavor stories on strategy, leadership and investment and contributes to other Market Moves newsletters.

With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati in 1997, initially covering retail and the courts before shifting to banking, insurance and investing. He later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal before being named editor of the Nashville Post in early 2008. He led a team that helped grow the Post's online traffic more than fivefold before joining Endeavor in September 2021.