July 11, 2025
NEW YORK – What’s stopping the revival of American manufacturing? A lengthy analysis from the New York Times quotes one chief exec who contends that for every 20 factory positions there’s only one qualified candidate. Furthermore, some of the Trump administration’s policies may worsen the problem.
“President Trump’s pledge to revive American manufacturing is running into the stubborn obstacle of demographic reality,” writes Farah Stockman, a reporter for the Times. “The pool of blue-collar workers who are able and willing to perform tasks on a factory floor in the United States is shrinking.”
Stockman cites the Trump administration’s aggressive cuts to training programs for blue-collar workers that have led to fewer people qualified to work among the new generation of factory workers.
“The administration has taken steps to eliminate the Job Corps, a 60-year-old program that provides at-risk youths from 16 to 24 with a path to a career in the trades,” she writes. “Huntington Ingalls Industries, the country’s largest shipbuilder, hired 68 Job Corps graduates in December in its bid to beef up its work force.”
However, a recent executive order directed the secretary of labor, the secretary of commerce, and the secretary of education to submit a plan to create one million registered apprenticeships. “But it is unclear if that ambitious target can be achieved with the funding in Mr. Trump’s budget bill,” Stockman adds, “which trims $1.6 billion from work force training.”
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