Every politician loves to have a slogan that is catchy and everyone sees something different in the slogan. For President Trump it is Make America Great Again (MAGA) and one of the cornerstones in the policy making is bringing more manufacturing to the US. There is much to agree with the policy, but there is also reality and one of the realities is demographic.

In an article by Farah Stockman of the New York Times News Service, the pool of blue-collar workers who are able and willing to perform tasks on a factory floor in the US is shrinking. As baby boomers retire, fewer young people are lining up to take their place. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 400,000 manufacturing jobs are currently unfilled. If manufacturing comes from overseas the number will get higher.

According to Victoria Bloom, the chief economist at the National Association of Manufacturers, difficulty attracting and retaining a quality workforce has been consistently cited as a top working challenge for US manufacturers since 2017. The other items of the list are tariffs and increased raw material costs.

Ron Hetrick, an economist with Lightcast, a company that provides labor data to universities and industry, noted as a society we have spent 3 generations telling everyone if you do not go to college, you are a loser. Now we are paying the price.

For some companies, remaining globally competitive involves the use of sophisticated equipment that requires employees to have extensive training and familiarity with software. And employers cannot simply hire people right out of high school without providing specialized training programs to bring them up to speed. This was not the case in the heyday of US manufacturing.

College graduates often do not have the right skills to succeed on the factory floor. There is mismatch between the not enough skilled blue-collar workers to fill the positions that exist and college graduates.

David Gitlin, Chair and CEO of Carrier Global which produces air conditioners and furnaces and services heating and cooling equipment says for every 20 posting we have one qualified applicant right now. With the rise of AI, the demand for technicians to service data centers has exploded, Mr. Gitlin estimates for each data center, 4 technicians to maintain a single chiller are needed.

We have 425,000 technicians in the next 10 years we need to double that number. But the number of people going to vocational schools is dropping not growing.

Is the federal government helping? The Trump administration’s aggressive cuts to training programs for blue-collar workers is hurting training a new generation of factory workers.

In April, President Trump signed an executive order to Make America Skilled Again, which consolidates existing work-force programs into one initiative that will give states grants if they meet certain criteria. But then he cut $1.6 billion from work-force training.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, for politicians a slogan is wonderful, but for business it has be embedded in everything the company does. Carrier Global can be another way to play the AI trade because once the chips are in the data center, the building has to be maintained. You can expect similar to Apple, services fees will rise. This is good diversification income for the company.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.