Blue collar resurgence? How skilled trades are shedding outdated stigmas 

Blue collar resurgence? How skilled trades are shedding outdated stigmas (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — With a shortage of skilled trades workers here and across the country, education and training is on the cusp of a resurgence, said Mary Kelly, CEO and president of StrataTech Education Group, the parent company of the country’s two largest accredited welding and HVAC schools.

The workforce shortage was caused by a combination of factors, including the impending retirement of its aging workers and a shift in the narrative surrounding blue collar work, according to Kelly.

“There’s now a much bigger interest in kids coming out of high school to go into the skilled trades, but that didn’t exist for a long time, so that deficit needs to be made up,” Kelly said. “And then you have a lot of good stuff going on in the country. There’s a lot of growing. You’ve got the infrastructure bill, so a lot of money is being pumped into construction, renewable energy and all those things, which is creating more jobs as well.”

StrataTech encompasses a network of skilled trade schools including Tulsa Welding School and The Refrigeration School — the U.S.’s largest accredited welding school and HVAC school, respectively.

TWS has four campuses nationwide, including Jacksonville, located at 1750 Southside Blvd. The local TWS campus was established in 2008, serving as an alternative to traditional higher education paths. Since then, it’s grown from a couple hundred students to well over 1,000 today, Kelly said.

It’s helping push back against the local shortage.

Breaking the skilled trades stigma

The perspective surrounding the skilled trades workforce has shifted with time. Kelly said it was once seen as a “fallback option” for students.

“We got off of offering trades education in the United States like we decided it was a bad thing,” she said. “It was vocational training, and we wanted everybody to go on to college and not go into the trades.”

The physical demands of these careers often spell early retirement for seasoned workers in their 50s. And as veteran workers begin to step off, new talent is needed to fill the gap. To Kelly, Gen Z is seeing that opportunity and stepping up the plate.

Today, all the trades training offerings in Jacksonville have seen an increase in demand, Kelly said, but the biggest are with electrical, welding and HVAC.

“I think part of that is probably because of all the infrastructure in the building and the construction that’s going on in Jacksonville, right?” Kelly said. “And also as part of electrical solar kind of falls under the electrical arm, so that’s big as well.”

The majority of students attending TWS want to get into the workforce quickly, so the school’s short-term program takes around seven months with time labs, onsite work and other requirements.

The Jacksonville welding school graduated 1,400 students in fiscal year 2024 and started 2,067 new ones, according to provided statistics. Of total graduates, the school had a 90.3% placement rate.

Nationwide, StrataTech’s schools help place around 5,000 graduates into skilled trade jobs, according to Kelly.

Even so, the need remains high.

“But we have employers that literally come to us and talk to our students, and they’re testing students on the spot,” she said. “We can’t satisfy all the employers that are looking for graduates to go work for them.”