Creator of "Dirty Jobs" Mike Rowe testifies to Congress

I could have written the bit about my grandfather.<p>He passed away 36 years ago this week and I was already thinking about him quite a bit.<p>He was the most amazing person I ever met. He came to the U.S. alone when he was 11 years old and lived with strangers until he met my grandmother at a picnic. They were married 3 weeks later. He spoke 5 languages fluently, played 6 musical instruments, never went to school a single day in his life, and he could fix anything.<p>Like OP, one of my most favorite days of my childhood was when I was 12 and my grandfather took me to work with him. I remember helping him carry his tools down the back steps and load them into the trunk of his Ford Galaxie 500. He taught me my all time favorite cuss word when he said, "Move all that shitcrap out of the way."<p>Just the other day, I drove right past that spot, stopped, and sat for a while, remembering the good old days. Today, just like OP, I just call someone to get something fixed. I've almost forgotten the joy of getting things done with my hands with the gentle guidance of a master.<p>Thanks for the memories, Mike Rowe and goldins.

Touches on a symptom. The issue is surprisingly complex.<p>My sister has done workman's compensation insurance and remarked that all the welders were out of work. (or a large number of them). I mentioned that there was a welder shortage in California and she suggested I mention that on some of the forums where they hang out. What I discovered was that there was a number of vocal proponents who argued they wouldn't work in California for the shit rate that was being offered. Instead they would <i>rather be out of work</i> than devalue their time.<p>So its a fair point, if enough skilled people stay out of the workforce then the economic demand will cause prices to rise to meet the market price. In California its interesting that the tax payers take on that burden and the shortfall threatens the teachers who then jump on to TV ads with their persistent message of non-support.<p>The question of illegal immigrants came up too but if you look you will find that a skilled welder / carpenter / mason has opportunity in Mexico that they don't need to emigrate for, so its not the issue one might suspect.<p>You get substitution effects, people substituting unskilled or lightly skilled labor instead. This results in problems later but some of those people will go on to become more skilled which will increase the pool.<p>A couple of people have mentioned the 'status' question, but from an economic standpoint the pricing of wages should be based on the ability of the population to supply qualified labor not on how 'important' they perceive the job to be. Its not always done that way but it does take personal bias out of the valuation question.<p>Mike's comment that we need more people in the trades is also tempered by manufacturers who would rather 'fix by replacement' than 'fix by repair' their items. They see someone with a broken washing machine as a motivated buyer, not someone with a problem they can fix. It would be helpful if congress mandated that the information to fix things was made available for free. (think service manuals) While it would burden the manufacturer to write such manuals it would enable repairs and a 'green' industry of keeping equipment running rather than in the dump.<p>I was hoping that one of the things that would come out of the Auto-melt-down would have been a vehicle that was bare bones, dead simple to repair, and inexpensive. There is demand for such a vehicle but no one is looking to meet it yet.<p>So "we need more skilled tradesman" as a call to arms has a number of things that it carries with it. I didn't see that the complexity or at least the interconnectivity of it all has been well represented to Congress.

I don't think the people in skilled trades really want congress to fix the skill gap problem. Just about every state sets incredibly high bars to be licensed. To be a licensed plumber in Massachusetts you have to pass a test (with only 70% correct!) and then work for 4 years before you can apply for a license. Plumbers around Boston get $100/hr and are hard to find. If Congress wants to allow more people to do skilled work they could mandate lower requirements. Kansas and Pennsylvania, for example, do not require plumbing licenses and I can personally vouch that toilets in those states do in fact work.

One of my luckier breaks was going to a highschool specializing in voc-ed. "Vocational Education" was the euphemism used to describe skills that you didn't learn in white collar jobs or in college/university.<p>While there I got to take classes in drafting, machining, and electronics (real electronics -- we etched our own boards!). I regret that I didn't spend any time in the auto shop. The students that excelled there did routine maintenance on all of the teachers' cars!<p>Years later I was an intern at Orbital Sciences, building a satellite (<a href="http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/SEASTAR/SPACECRAFT.html" rel="nofollow">http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/SEASTAR/SPACECRAFT.h...</a>).<p>One day I was chatting with my mentor/boss about building a testing harness. A physical one with dangly bits and wires. I don't remember the details of the conversation, but I remember a compliment he gave me -- to this day, one of my most cherished:<p>"I <i>know</i> you'll do fine: you've burnt yourself on soldering irons."<p>At least among those rocket scientists, the ability to actually build stuff is held in high regard.

I read through the other comments before commenting here. There is an interesting issue regarding the distinction between status of an occupation and the pay of an occupation (which has much to do with schoolteacher pay, as it happens). But as to pay, currently job classifications involving related work have higher pay if they require higher education degrees as a barrier to entry than if they don't. One example that is familiar to industrial psychologists and individual differences psychologists is the pay of engineers and technicians in the same industrial category. AT EVERY LEVEL OF TESTABLE INDIVIDUAL ABILITY, the economic return from becoming an engineer is better than the economic return from becoming technician. Even if what the engineer does on the job is decide that a key technician has to accomplish a task (that is, even if the technician is essential to the process in real-world terms), the engineer will be paid more. This is why there is demand for degrees from second-tier and third-tier engineering programs that look little better academically than glorified high schools, and appear to offer less hands-on technical training than a well designed technical certificate program. Where a worker can fit in the division of labor in a company makes a difference in the worker's pay, and people pursuing education or training look for what will help them make the most pay.<p>Mike Rowe's thought-provoking testimony to Congress submitted here identifies a problem, but it's not clear that the solution he suggests will work as well as simply reforming immigration laws in the United States in the direction of opening up work-related immigrant visas for skilled trades workers. Perhaps the workers who can best improve their own lot in life as tradesmen in the United States economy are those who have already invested in learning a trade in another country, and who perhaps are learners of English as a second language who might have particular difficulty pursuing a postsecondary academic degree in the United States. That may be the way to fill the skilled trade gap in the United States.

The video is on YouTube, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h_pp8CHEQ0" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h_pp8CHEQ0</a> I think it's a little more meaningful for this kind of content, and the jokes are funnier :)

It's interesting that our solution to "nobody wants to do physical labor" is to outsource it to other countries and our solution to "nobody wants to do professional knowledge work . . . for cheap" is to outsource it to other countries and supplement with H1Bs as much as possible. What I find odd is the difference in response to each.<p>If you're a professional that works with knowledge, you're told "hey, that's the world market, baby -- if you can't compete on a fifth of your salary, then to hell with you".<p>If you're a professional that works in labor/manual work, we involve unions and national programs to re-invigorate interest in the field of welding or laying pipes or wiring homes and treat it like news that the national flag has just been replaced.<p>I find both a concern, yet am bothered by the seeming double-standard.<p>As a personal anecdote: My grandfather was a pacifist who none-the-less served his country when called during WWII. He was an engineer who was responsible for a lot of stuff in Anchorage during the time. (He had an amazing panoramic photo set he took of Valdeze back when it was whole). He was a pianist. He was a chemist. He touch mathematics in college. He threw discus in college track and field. His home was filled with books on chemistry, math, history, physics, geography. I grew up surrounded by stacks of OMNI, National Geographic, Discovery, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and plenty of other great reads. And for a living, he chose to build houses. He became a general contractor who didn't really contract out that much work. He did almost everything himself, except pour foundations and wire the homes. He built beautiful homes that often took two to four years and cost a few million dollars (and some people hired him more than once to build their homes over the decades as their tastes evolved). He just loved building stuff and working outside and he did it his entire life. I was also fortunate to spend many years of my childhood going onto his job-site with him day after day and goofing around, helping, watching. There's a lot to be said for loving your job and doing it excellently.

This is about money and status.<p>College is higher status than vocational school.<p>A professional job is higher status that a trade.<p>The money is not fantastic right out of school. You have to apprentice and keep working your way up and taking tests, etc.<p>The job is dirty, you will hurt your back, etc, eventually (more when rather than if).<p>So, if I'm a kid, making a decision about whether to go college or votech, I'm logically going to choose college if I can (higher status, lower chance of injury, probably more money).<p>When thinking about status, imagine a daughter telling her mom about her new fiance. Compare plumber to lawyer. Brick mason to dentist. Programmer to Marketing VP (yes programming is low status, that's why it's called software engineering now, see Domestic Engineering or Sanitation Engineer).<p>If you want to earn a lot in a trade you _must_ start you own business. Depending on the trade you need a large amount of capital. So the _best_ you can do is have your name on the truck. You can make a lot of money.<p>I have a cousin with a succesful electrcial business, of course now he's a real estate developer and drives a lexus (again, see status above). My brother has just gone into business and so I hear a lot of his woes.<p>I can afford a Lexus and my back doesn't hurt and I'm not dirty. So...I like Mike but this seems to be a case of "I don't want to do that job, but someone has to."<p>We'll probably see something like the "Polish Plumber" <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Plumber" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Plumber</a>. A lot of immigrants are going into the trades (see drywall and landscaping).<p>So, as immigrants before them (like my ancestors, and as others have mentioned) they go into the trades b/c it's the highest paying work they can get.

&#62;In high schools, the vocational arts have all but vanished. We've elevated the importance of "higher education" to such a lofty perch that all other forms of knowledge are now labeled "alternative." Millions of parents and kids see apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities as "vocational consolation prizes," best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree. And still, we talk about millions of "shovel ready" jobs for a society that doesn't encourage people to pick up a shovel.<p>The reason for that is because the huge manufacturing automation and outsourcing wave that swept the nation in the 70s, 80s and 90s destroyed the association between skilled labor and a "good job". Its hard to make a living building things when a robot or a Chinese peasant can build the same thing for a tenth of the cost. Its hard to make a living fixing things when its cheaper to order a replacement.

Making a pencil by yourself is hard. Expecting everyone to make their own pencils is silly.<p>You don't get more and better food by becoming a better farmer, you get some other guy to be better at farming, and some other guy to be better at making farming equipment, and some other to be better at making software that runs the equipment, and some other guy to be better at making the satellite that gives weather data to the software, and so on and so forth.<p>Yes, we need people in skilled trades. It might even be a good idea to start retraining idle workers in skilled trades. But specialization isn't just for ants. There is no need to feel bad about the fact that you don't know how to fix your toilet, or computer, or car if you're an otherwise productive adult that happen to know some specialized set of remunerative skills that the plumber/technician/mechanic does not.

I thought Mike was just some "TV guy" they hired to do that show. This puts a whole new perspective on things. Good for Mike, hopefully someone will listen and act.

I agree that there is a perception problem in this country involving skilled non-degree jobs. On one hand we're complaining that immigrants are taking all of our "jerbs", but on the other hand, we say we're too good for a job that doesn't require a bachelors degree.<p>We have to break this perception. I don't know what the solution is, but I do know in Germany students can decide whether to take a university route (high school) or take a skilled trade route (vocational high school).<p>Of course, that system has its own problems, because students are separated by social class by the end of 4th grade, which is incredibly early to tell a young person that they can or can't get a university education.

One of my most striking memories is groups of men sitting on kerbs in Cairo with a couple of battered stone chisels and a hammer. They just sat there every day with their tools, waiting for someone to give them work chipping concrete BY HAND for a day.<p>They were skilled guys (at bashing concrete and holding a hammer all day), and willing to work hard. But in a fucked economy they couldn't contribute anything except cheap labour. Non-manufacturing trades don't support an economy. It's nice to think about an army of new handimen rebuilding America, but the reality is that an army of Amazon drones is what will be coming.

Canada has had a "Trades" ad campaign going for some years now, and as a result, a lot of trades jobs can be hard to find. I have a friend who recently decided to get in to trades as a welder, after a string of poor life decisions left him without a serious education or career.<p>The sad part is that he's having a bitch of a time finding a job up here... which I assume is due to revitalization of trades from the government ad campaign.<p>Definitely something to support. And hey, maybe my friend can go work in the US.

On indeed.com job search for Seattle most welders seem to earn around $30k per year. Denver seems to be closer to $20K/anum. Not exactly indicative of a shortage driving the price up.<p><a href="http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=welder&#38;l=seattle%2C+WA" rel="nofollow">http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=welder&#38;l=seattle%2C+WA</a><p>Plumbers are around the same:<p><a href="http://www.indeed.com/q-Plumber-l-Seattle,-WA-jobs.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.indeed.com/q-Plumber-l-Seattle,-WA-jobs.html</a><p>It's a cool story and ole Mike sure has a purty smile. But this strikes me as a bit of PR for Dirty Jobs.

<i>A few years from now, an hour with a good plumber - if you can find one - is going to cost more than an hour with a good psychiatrist. At which point we'll all be in need of both.</i><p>Mr Rowe: this fact, if you really believe it, will ensure the problem is fixed. No need to testify to congress about it.

I don't buy that Dirty Jobs and their like help to reform the image of skilled labor. For everyone I know that watches those shows its more like Intervention where the show just makes you feel better about your life.

The welding program has all but completely shut down at my local community college. They auctioned off all of their machining equipment for fractions of pennies on the dollar about two years ago. If I want to complete any AWS certifications, I will have to drive a ~40mi round trip to Moraine Valley to complete the necessary training. There is literally no place closer, and I live a big city.<p>So, for my own selfish reasons, I would also like to see a push to increase the numbers of skilled laborers. :-)

This is something I've thought about in the last year or two as well. We have a culture of "buy", not "fix". In part, this is because we've had a very rich 60 years. In part, this is because things are cheap. In part, because factories design things that are not designed for repair by customers.<p>The reality is, we can't fix a busted capacitor, a scratched CD, or a damaged microchip. Nor do we have the equipment and spare materials ready to hand to weld cracked plastic. Super Glue is it, and not a very good it.<p>Whereas, we can fix wood, and with some work, manage metal. Earth can be munged around.<p>Cars are designed to be maintained, unlike computer hardware (especially our Macs :-( ).<p>So in a culture where by the nature of the things we use, we can not trivially repair them - we leave off the ideas of repair, and prefer the idea of replace.<p>This is a problem, because we are more than consumers, more than robots being pipe-fed from the wells of other people's industry.<p>H.G. Wells' conception of the time traveller always hangs around in my head when this sort of discussion arises.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine</a>

Thank you Mike Rowe for putting this on the record!<p>The trend away from skill-based learning to the ivory tower is contributing to a deterioration in both. University education is moving towards the average at an alarming rate. The value of an undergraduate degree is diminishing by the day, which is further exacerbated by the skyrocketing cost of education. It seems to me that high schools should promote vocational education just as much as they promote four year universities. The current system of trying to get every high schooler into college is asinine, not everyone is cut out for it. It seems to me that students, parents, teachers, and guidance counselors should work better together to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a given individual to determine what that student finds most interesting, and foster that feeling. Instead, schools receive more prestige for graduating more students into university and universities receive more funding for accepting more students. Ridiculous.

<i>It occurred to me that I had become disconnected from a lot of things that used to fascinate me. I no longer thought about where my food came from, or how my electricity worked, or who fixed my pipes, or who made my clothes. There was no reason to. I had become less interested in how things got made, and more interested in how things got bought.</i><p>Can a modern civilization really be considered "civilized" when things like these salt-of-the-Earth basics are so far removed from the general population?<p><i>In Alabama, a third of all skilled tradesmen are over 55. They're retiring fast, and no one is there to replace them.</i><p>Indeed, this is another thing. My dad was a construction worker -- he hung drywall for a subcontractor, so you can imagine what his benefits were: zilch. And he worked until about 3 months before he passed away at age 53. These jobs aren't the kinds of jobs people can do until they hit what the rest of society considers a respectable retirement age.

While I appreciate Mike Rowe's sentiments and general argument, this speech reminds of politicians who lament the loss of manufacturing jobs as America's backbone. Economists have regularly pointed out that as a country becomes wealthier and more educated, the share of the economy devoted to manufacturing falls. This isn't really a good or a bad thing, its just a reflection of how that country's resources fit into the global economy. This loss of manufacturing is only a problem when people are losing these jobs in a "race to the bottom" situation, much like Mexico and Asian countries during the 1990's.<p>However, I do acknowledge that the current education system frowns upon pursuing vocation degrees, when many of my friends would have excelled in these programs during high school if given the opportunity. The important distinction here is that we want jobs that are "skilled," not jobs that are manufacturing per se.

This article really hit home, it describes the situation today quite accurately. I live in a large town in which 90% of the kids at my high school go on to college after graduation, anything besides college is looked down upon.<p>Our county also runs a smaller technical high school specifically for this stuff, but unfortunately it isn't a very nice school, as there is a lot of violence.<p>I, personally, would not take an occupation involving this kind of work, being as I have a future somewhere in Computer Science, but I definitely value these skills, and hope to learn a lot of them in the future. Maybe one summer I'll work odd jobs, or fix up my house.

Here's a thought: let's subsidize trade schools by not subsidizing colleges!

I believe that the main problem is we have spent the last 20 years "training our replacements" (i.e. selling off semiconductor tech, outsourcing) and not enough time training our children. Maybe if we spent a bit more time teaching our children instead of depending on the schools to do it for us things might be better.<p>Make time to make things with your children. Life is about more than money, your grandfather knew that.

He should've pulled out the "sheep's balls on my chin" story from his TED talk. That would've been way more convincing. ;-)

I'm not gay but I have a serious crush on Mike. I've always respected people who could fix things regardless of what it is. Mike Rowe's show is pretty much my dream job. "Go do" a bunch of stuff others think is gross, and get dirty. Work with my hands.<p>Too bad i'm in IT with mouths to feed. Hey, at least it's hardware support

"I believe we need a national PR Campaign for Skilled Labor."<p>We had this in Canada a few years back. Or it might have been Ontario only, but in any case, there were lots of TV ads and financial incentives for getting the appropriate education in skilled labour.

Around here they're trying to increase the college graduation rate at all costs, education and merit be damned. It's a symptom of the same "everyone must be degreed" mentality.

well spoken. I'm glad he provided a balanced approach to the trades. he hit the nail on the head... and to think.. I used to kinda think we was a douche.

I think he could run for president!

frickin lov this guy. My own father is a craftsmen and soon to retire. Dirt is cool

I was really annoyed in high school that there was no way to fit in wood &#38; metal shop <i>and</i> programming classes. I even took 'early bird' classes and took PE at the local community college, but still couldn't fit in metal working. It was disappointing to be restricted to a particular skill path at such a young age.

If most of the readers here are like myself then we can't really do anything about that issue, I can't fix or do anything very well with my hands, takes me forever and ends up doing like a 5 year old did it. I'm great with logic abstractions but I suck in the physical world.<p>I find it funny this post is #1 on hacker news today.

Put farmers in the same category.<p>Not sure what, but I sniff an opportunity for tech to get involved here.