Why Skilled Trade Jobs Are Safer from Automation Than You Think

Fewer workers today enter the trades than in years past. The expectation that trade work will fade away has encouraged many to pursue white-collar jobs instead, leading to a skilled trade worker shortage. And yet the projection that automation will disrupt blue-collar trade jobs sooner than so-called “knowledge worker” jobs is misleading.

Automation will reduce the demand for trade labor over time. But many physical requirements of these jobs are surprisingly hard to automate, and the essential nature of trade work will continue to buoy demand.

More importantly, skilled trades require entrepreneurial and creative thinking, which offer more robust protection from automation.

The skilled trade worker shortage and continued demand

Workers are abandoning the trades at a faster rate than the trades are being automated. The labor supply decrease outpaces any decrease in demand, which is why wages are rising faster than ever for skilled technicians.

One reason the demand for skilled trades remains stable is that these jobs are essential. In the face of a disaster, service technicians are required to keep systems running. In the past year alone, I’ve seen our business’s technicians work around the clock in snowstorms, power outages, and a pandemic to keep critical sites like hospitals and government facilities operational.

Economists like Gary Shilling have tracked the growth of blue-collar and manual service wages over the last several years and find that blue-collar wages are growing faster than white-collar wages. In fact, they’ve had the largest pay bump across all industries, a trend that has continued even as the economic shock of the pandemic has subsided.

Skilled trades are more protected from automation than you think

There is reason to believe this wage trend may continue, because even as fewer people enter the trades, most dimensions of these jobs have proven resilient to automation. Don’t expect that to change soon.

We tend to overstate the risk automation poses to the skilled trades relative to white-collar jobs. The jobs of lawyers, doctors, even computer programmers, all consist of some repeatable tasks which are more readily automated—and many other tasks that require complex and creative problem-solving skills less ripe for automation.

In my experience working with technicians, electricians, and plumbers, I have found that the mix of rote and creative tasks is not so different from many white-collar professions. And skilled trade jobs require more physical labor in environments where robots will remain clumsy and expensive for the foreseeable future.

A McKinsey Report concludes that “[t]hose professions highly dependent on…physical work in a predictable environment…are likely to be the most affected [by automation].” Many mistakenly think of the trades as fitting the bill: men mindlessly hammering away at nails or pulling cables. In fact, skilled trades require technicians to think creatively in unpredictable environments.

During my time in the field with technicians, I’ve never seen two mechanical rooms that look the same. Service technicians troubleshoot numerous issues with limited information and under considerable time pressure. The solution often isn’t straightforward or formulaic. Though we have estimation tools to price a job, a technician often needs to examine the site because the equipment, piping, and valves come from various OEMs and are laid out differently in each property.

Even as automated systems improve, many tasks are likely to require human involvement: a controls system may determine that a part is broken, but a human must properly wire and install a new one.  In fact, the trajectory of artificial intelligence suggests humans will remain important for skilled manual work. AI has successfully mastered complicated cognitive tasks even as robotics has struggled with simpler physical ones.

A machine can beat humans at Go—a strategy game with more moves than there are atoms in the universe—but a robot can’t load the dishwasher. Simply accessing the equipment may make it prohibitive for automation: units are in basements, on rooftops, and in hard-to-reach areas that would be difficult or costly for a machine to access.

Skilled trades require many of the soft skills we associate with white collar work

Of course, if physical labor were the only defense against automation, these trades would soon cease to be skilled, and anyone could do them. The more important—and often overlooked—reason why demand for skilled trades will remain stable is that they require substantial entrepreneurial and interpersonal skills.

The same McKinsey Report notes that “occupations that require application of expertise, interaction with stakeholders…or a high degree of social and emotional response will be less susceptible to automation…” Many completely miss the fact that skilled trade work requires these very same skills. Skilled tradespeople are on the front lines and face the customer.

I have seen our service technicians explain issues to clients, calm an alarmed property manager, and recommend the best solution after listening to the customer’s unique needs and preferences. The most successful technicians not only possess deep technical expertise, but the interpersonal skills that win them customer loyalty.

Skilled tradesmen aren’t going anywhere

The skills that make trade workers most successful today are the same ones that will help defend them from automation in the future. Ironically, they are the same attributes we value in knowledge jobs: creativity, entrepreneurism, and social acumen. But most of us fail to see the similarity.

Those who do, and choose the trades, benefit from both the security and the earnings these dignified careers offer.