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General Motors CEO Mary Barra is urging high school students to consider skilled trades as a career path, saying technical, hands-on jobs may be more resilient to artificial intelligence than some white-collar positions while still offering strong earning potential, Fortune reports.
Barra says dealer technicians can earn in the $80,000s or $90,000s and potentially more depending on hours worked. Demand extends across industries, with an estimated 2.1 million skilled-trades jobs potentially going unfilled nationally by 2030.
Barra says the U.S. faces a broader societal issue in how skilled trades are perceived compared with white-collar professions. GM says it has invested more than $250 million over the past five years in skilled-trades training, while its May announcement separately highlighted nearly $200 million invested over the previous year.
Other business leaders have raised similar concerns. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has pointed to shortages of electricians, welders and other workers as a potential constraint on shipbuilding and defense investment, while BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has said AI could disrupt traditional white-collar career paths while creating greater demand for skilled workers.
