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Skilled tradespeople are emerging as the economy’s most recession-proof careers. getty For most of my career, when asked to speak to high school students or incoming first-year college students and give them career advice, I mostly steered them towards a career in technology. I would talk about how I saw tech jobs driving the future, especially in IT, programming, security, and areas that would be important to tech infrastructure.

Looking back, given that today AI has threatened the jobs of millions of white-collar tech workers, I should have also recommended another option that looks like perhaps a safer bet: blue-collar jobs.

When I was in high school in the late 1960s, one of the more interesting programs offered separate trade school specialties. My high school provided programs for auto repair, electricians, HVAC, and plumbing.

At the time, as a certified geek, I did not appreciate these programs in my high school and their potential as a significant career opportunity for many in my class.

But decades of watching manufacturing jobs disappear overseas and being told the future belonged to knowledge workers, America’s blue-collar workforce may be one of the safest careers to have. As artificial intelligence threatens to automate away millions of white-collar positions, the very trades that were once dismissed as “dead-end jobs” are emerging as the economy’s most recession-proof careers.

While ChatGPT can write code, analyze spreadsheets, and even draft legal briefs, it can’t fix your broken air conditioner on a sweltering August afternoon or rewire the electrical systems that power our AI-driven economy. As a homeowner, I have come to appreciate the skills of plumbers, electricians, and other blue-collar workers I call on often for various issues, such as replacing my water heater, drainage problems, and roof leaks.In my teen years, I worked on cars and even took a dedicated auto class. But today, if my car has a problem, I go to a skilled mechanic to fix any issue that arises.

MORE FOR YOU A recent Microsoft analysis examining AI-resistant jobs reveals the scope of this economic reversal. The 40 most vulnerable occupations—translators, historians, sales representatives, and other desk-bound professionals—employ roughly 11 million Americans. Meanwhile, the 40 least vulnerable positions—heavy equipment operators, roofers, electricians, and similar hands-on roles—currently employ about 5.5 million workers.

Mike Rowe, the “Dirty Jobs” host, captured this shift perfectly at a recent AI summit: “We’ve been telling kids for 15 years to code. ‘Learn to code!’ we said. Yeah, well, AI’s coming for the coders. They’re not coming for the welders. They’re not coming for the plumbers.”

The irony of our AI revolution is that it requires massive physical infrastructure that only human hands can build and maintain. Every AI query runs on servers housed in data centers that need electricians, HVAC technicians, and construction workers. I once went into a central server farm in Oregon that needed massive air conditioning to cool the hundreds of servers running 24/7.

The more we automate knowledge work, the more we need skilled tradespeople to keep the digital economy running.

Companies are already boasting about saving hundreds of millions annually by replacing human workers with AI. But these companies also need the wiring for their new data centers or maintaining the cooling systems that prevent their AI servers from overheating, and they will acknowledge that they need these blue-collar workers to make that happen. The AI boom will only intensify this crunch as demand for data center construction and maintenance skyrockets.

We will also need millions of people to manage these manufacturing lines in the future.

A recent NPR article points out that the Manufacturing Institute (the NAM’s workforce development and education affiliate) and Deloitte, a consultancy firm, surveyed more than 200 manufacturing companies last year. More than 65% of the firms said recruiting and retaining workers was their No. 1 business challenge,” NPR noted.

“The Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte projected that the industry will need 3.8 million additional workers by 2033 and that as many as ‘1.9 million of these jobs could go unfilled if workforce challenges are not addressed.'”

I believe there needs to be a reimagining of the workforce development. Programs like the Manufacturing Institute’s maintenance technician training, now operating in 16 states, show what’s possible. Early graduates average an income of $95,000 annually within five years—compensation that rivals many traditional white-collar careers without the student debt burden.

The world is learning in real time that AI is a transformational technology that brings with it new needs, particularly when it comes to U.S. infrastructure and our electrical grid. America might not be producing enough electricians to build and service the data centers that power AI.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says he has “told the members of the Trump team that we’re going to run out of electricians as we build out AI data centers. We just don’t have enough.” These centers are a critical part of building America’s leadership in AI.

For decades, American culture has pushed college as the only path to middle-class prosperity while stigmatizing manual labor as somehow lesser work. This cultural bias persists even as plumbers and electricians often out-earn college graduates saddled with student loans.

The AI revolution may finally force a long-overdue reckoning with these assumptions. When artificial intelligence can write legal briefs but can’t unclog a drain, maybe it’s time to reconsider which skills are truly valuable in the modern economy.

One big question asked of tech CEOs is whether they are willing to help retrain many of their tech workers who will lose jobs to AI. As of now, I have seen no dedicated programs coming from tech companies that offer any transitional programs, especially towards blue-collar careers that could be just as lucrative as the white collar programs today.

I suspect this transition won’t happen automatically. It requires coordinated effort from employers, educational institutions, and policymakers to create pathways for mid-career workers displaced by AI to retrain for skilled trades. The infrastructure exists—apprenticeship programs, community college partnerships, and industry training initiatives—but it needs to be massively scaled.

As artificial intelligence transforms the American workforce, one truth is emerging: the future will favor not those who mimic machines, but those who offer what machines can’t—deeply human skills. In a world racing toward automation, this is a powerful reminder that some roles still demand the irreplaceable human touch.