Andrew Salgado knew that the university wasn’t for him.
Still, after graduating from high school in 2023, he was scheduled to enroll in the accounting program at his local technical college in a few months.
“I was the guy who thought, ‘OK, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I can’t go to college,” said Salgado, 20, who lives just outside Tampa, Florida.
However, a few weeks before he began, Salgado’s mother persuaded him to switch his major to skilled trade by highlighting opportunities throughout the industry for those with problem-solving personalities like his own.
After scrutinizing social media for several days for videos on various trade jobs, Salgado quickly landed in HVAC and landed in heating, ventilation and air conditioning due to his desire to help those in need. There he changed his major and eventually graduated from the trade school. Two years later, he is an HVAC technician, helping to modify the home cooling unit. And he can’t imagine himself doing anything else.
“I love every second of it,” Salgado said.
Salgado is seeing an increasing number of Zers who have chosen their carriers in skilled trading. They are becoming electricians, welders, and HVAC technicians, due to the promise of long-term stability without moving on to major student debt.
A resume builder survey from May, which voted 1,434 adults between the ages of 18 and 28, found that 42% of Gen Z workers are looking to blue-collar work with the motives of the top two who have not been replaced by artificial intelligence.
And last year, Gen Z accounted for nearly one in four new recruits in skilled trade roles, despite accounting for just 14% of the total workforce.
Many showcase their work on Tiktok through the “Day in the Life” video – posting both fun and frustrating moments, earning millions of views. This video will provide an audience in the app. One in three users range from 18 to 24 years old and have a trading window.
Salgado’s video records his day throughout the day, from brushing his teeth before the sun rises to completing several service jobs by the evening.
“I just want to show the next generation. I’m 18, 19, 20 years old with these videos. If I can do that, you guys can,” he said.
Adrien China, an apprentice to a 19-year-old electrician from New Jersey, agrees.
“It’s good to be able to inspire people and make them better for themselves,” he says, often sharing videos of finished electric projects.
Some say it changed the way we see what we see in America.
Jordan Morris, a 20-year-old HVAC technology in Richmond, Virginia, wants to work for himself. “I want to start my own company ten years from now,” he said.
For Salgado, it’s all about family.
“As long as I have a family, a wife and children, it’s home for me,” Salgado said. “That’s America’s dream.”
Colleges and Trade Schools
With the threat of artificial intelligence taking over the role of white-collar amid the surge in tuition costs at four-year universities, many young people are turning to blue-collar jobs due to the low barriers to entry.
The average cost of a four-year US university is around $108,000 over four years. This is a 45% increase over the past 20 years adjusted for inflation, according to a US News & World report. In contrast, most trade schools range from several weeks of instruction to two years. Costs are only a small portion of four-year universities. It ranges from thousands of dollars to a total of $25,000. Some trade schools allow students to earn wages while studying, while others are fully sponsored by companies that graduates plan to work.
After trying twice in college just before the start of the Covid pandemic, Mary Milikan, a 24-year-old electrician in rural Nevada, said she could work “anytime, anywhere.”
So she pivoted, dropped out of college, went to Powerlineman School and eventually school as an electrician. Currently, both an electrician and an assistant trade instructor, Millikan said she will post videos of herself working on power lines and local mines to encourage other young people, especially women, to enter the field.
“I found a passion to help others in Tiktok find their way through deals,” Millikan said.
High demand, low supply of trade experts
There are millions of skilled roles and there are not enough people to fill them. BLS estimates there are 500,000 open manufacturing jobs in the US, with some estimates predicting that the number will rise to 2 million by 2033.
Gen Z is beginning to help fill that gap.
Chad Phillip, an instructor at Fred Appliance Academy, an Ohio trading school, has seen his class average age drop considerably in recent years. His latest classes help students become certified to fix numerous kitchen equipment in three weeks. The average age of students is about 28 years old, with several people aged 18, 19 and 20, he said.
“The biggest thing I’ve got from students is that they want to put it into practice,” he said. “They don’t want to sit in the office or in the cubicle and do that kind of work.”
The school promotes Tiktok and Facebook classes and posts clips of students working on the class’s appliances. Between the platform, the school has over 50,000 followers, with some students admitting that they first learned about trading from video clips.
“It’s become more common for students to arrive on the first day of class and they’ll say, ‘I saw you on Tiktok or Facebook,” Philip said.
Experts say transactions that have generally relied on word of mouth and employee referrals are beginning to attract more young people through social media. And the data backs up it.
Thumbtack’s 2024 “Future of the Skilled Trades” report is a platform that connects hundreds of thousands of trade experts to homeowners who need home maintenance, with two of the three generations saying social media is increasing interest in the transaction. And more than half, 55%, said they would consider careers in trading that have risen from the previous year, according to a poll surveying 1,000 people aged 16 to 26 in two days last July.
Marco Zappacosta, CEO of Thumbtack and author of the report, said social media has a way of affecting young people more than teachers and family members.
The trade industry has been stable for a long time, he added, even as technology evolves and endures a recession due to the services they provide.
For this reason, according to Zappa Costa, almost 40% of professionals who have participated in Thumbtack since 2024 are under the age of 35.
“When they look at these categories, what they’re looking at is probably something that’s not gone,” he said. “If the water heater breaks, I’ll fix it to hire someone.”
