We Need More Young People Who Want To Do Dirty Jobs | Clips | Dad Saves America

0:01 - There is a serious deficit in the amount of people out there entering the trades. - For sure. - Everybody's being told they gotta go to college and take nonsense. And meanwhile, you can come out and make a really good living being a contributor to the creation of homes and other things. - That's right. - So I hear this in the abstract. What's your boots-on-the-ground experience with the availability of skilled craftsmen and trades people?

0:34 And how do you think about that? - Yeah, I mean it's such a multifaceted issue, but it is a crisis, number one. And it's definitely happening. If you just go to any one of my job sites, the average age of the workforce on my jobs is probably 45, I would suspect, or 50. - These are really physically demanding jobs. - Just turned 50 recently, and I could tell you that I'm not able to do a carpentry day job like I used to be able to, you know, on a Saturday for me, let's say, like I could 20 years ago.

1:04 Where I could work all weekend long for 10 hours and go back to work on Monday. My body is not able to do that. So we've got that issue of that aging population. I think you're right on that college front. Through the '90s and 2000s, that's all we told kids was you have to go to college. And now that I have kids, I can tell you not every kid fits the college mold. And there's very few, but there are some trade programs that kids can get into high school and get exposed and learn it.

1:35 Unfortunately, a lot of what happens though is the trades become the second choice because they didn't make it in college, or they didn't do whatever. And so now they've gotta figure out how do I make a living? You know, "My girlfriend's pregnant. I've gotta make a living 'cause my parents don't want me living there anymore. What job can I get?" Incidentally, I actually know some people that were in that situation and embraced it, and have been incredibly successful 20 years later.

2:04 And oh, by the way, I feel like we've got a little bit of a backlash from starting families late too in America. In fact, someone just recently gave a commencement speech. And in their speech they said, this was a a well-known football player, I forget who it was. In his commencements addressed to a college audience, said, "You know, the best thing that I ever did in my life was get married and have kids. And so forget about all these other things.

2:27 If I can tell you any piece of advice, get married and have kids early." You know, he's like 45 and he is got kids that are graduating from high school and moving on to whatever in life. What a great piece of advice for America. I mean, there's something about having a job and working and having kids that makes you realize, yeah, money and job, that's great and all, but my family is what really matters the most, right?

2:52 And my being a dad. I mean, we're talking about "Dad Saves America" here. There's really no more important job in my life than being a dad. That's not entirely true. Being a husband's actually a little more important 'cause my kids will go away and my wife won't. So I need to maintain that relationship. - (laughs) That's a good way to think about it. They're gonna eventually be their own adults, but- - I mean, ultimately our priorities, I think, should be God first, your wife next, your family next, and then everything else falls behind those.

3:20 But back to this how do we encourage young people to get in the trades? I'm seeing more and more evidence of that happening. I can think of two or three dozen high schools now that have amazing trade programs that are exposing ninth graders to electrical trades, to plumbing trades, to carpentry trades. And they're outputting graduates that are going right into those trades, and as an 18-year-old are making 25 bucks an hour, 30 bucks an hour, and have nowhere to go but up from there.

3:50 And so to have no debt, to go to a job that you like, that is hard work. Don't get me wrong. You're gonna come home sweaty and dirty, but you're gonna feel like you actually accomplished something. That's good for a lot of America. And the one thing that I don't see yet that I wanna see more of that they've been doing in Europe for years is there's a real culture of respecting trades in craftsmanship in Europe that we're missing here.

4:16 And I think that we could foster that more and more. But as a quick example, I went to the BAU show a couple years ago in Munich. And it's really like the international building show where there's people from all, literally, all over the world coming to the show. And in Germany where it was held, you saw these groups of men and women, all ages, and they'd walk around and they'd all be in like a green jumpsuit.

4:37 They looked like an Audi pit crew that you'd see on an F1 race. And then you'd get up close and it'd be like, Hans, and it'd be like, you know, Klein Snicker painting. And it's a group of painters that were wearing a clean, crisp mascot brand uniform with their name on it, and they're all walking around the show together. And you saw that with plumbing companies, HVAC companies, painters, I mean like all these different trades. And they were really proud to be at the show and wear their uniform.

5:09 And it made me excited to come home. And honestly, that's one thing that my company does. I only have five people that work for me that are actually in the field doing work. We call it self-perform work. But we all wear the same logo, whether you're a builder, a manager, whether you work for my video production company. We all wear the same Build logo. And I make sure that everyone has a uniform. I call it my Jiffy Lube uniform.

5:31 I wear it with pride. I look the same today as you've seen me on my videos, right? - That's right. That's right, yeah. - I wear the same hat with the same logo, and we all wear the same thing every day. And we take pride in what we do. I don't need to wear a suit just 'cause I own the company. - Has there been things that give you hope for the face of trade craft in the United States?

5:53 You said you're seeing some schools that are now helping people, at least that's probably locally. - There is a few programs locally, which are pretty awesome. And in fact, one of my electricians is a graduate from the Cedar Park Trade Program where he started going to electrical trade classes a ninth grader. When he graduated, he got hired by a local electrical company. And about seven years later, as a 25-year-old, he's married and has two kids and owns his own company, and he has two guys on the crew.

6:23 So the three of them are running an electrical company. And what an amazing thing that in America, you could graduate a high school degree. He was a master electrician before he was even 25. Once he got his master's license, he could start his own firm. And you know, he's making good money, has a great family, and he's had that much success. He's not even 30 yet. That's crazy to me. - Yeah, that's amazing. - That's so cool, isn't it?

6:49 So there are more and more stories of that, and I think that you'll see more of "The Build Show" talking about that. For instance, next month, I'm going out to film a brand new series called "Talking Trades". And we're gonna interview six different trades people in different trades, including a female trades person up in Minnesota who shoots videos with us, talking about how'd you get into it? What do you like about it? What do you not like about it?

7:13 Mike Rowe's done a bunch for this cause too. "Dirty Jobs" is an awesome show. - There's the SkillsUSA organization. - SkillsUSA is amazing. They're in high schools all over the nation. Mike Holmes has done a bunch on this topic too. It's a really big need, and more and more people are talking about it. So I'm hopeful that within the next decade, we're gonna see a big change and a big switch away from, "Hey, you gotta go to college and get any degree to, "Hey, let's think about a career in the trades," 'cause you could start it right now, right after you graduate from high school, and you could be a huge leg up on your peers when they're 23 and 24 and have $100,000 in debt.

7:53 And they're still struggling frankly, to find out what their career path and what their life looks like. - If you enjoyed this clip, we've got more where that came from. Be sure to check out my full conversation with Matt Risinger. And one of the best ways you can help support us is to subscribe to the channel so you won't miss their interviews and short videos as they come out each week. (upbeat music)