Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, said at Ford’s Accelerate forum in Michigan that America has lost the notion of stable careers that once defined it. A report from the Alliance for America’s Skilled Trades, founded by Ford, BlackRock, Google and Carhartt, projects about 1.7 million skilled-trades job openings per year through 2035, with only 55 people trained for every 100 available positions. Fink also highlighted the gap between stock market returns, which averaged 10% annually over 25 years, and wage growth, which was only about 3% per year over the same period. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that median tenure for men aged 55-64 with their employer fell from 15.3 years in 1983 to 9.6 years in January 2026. The report notes that 84% of students agree that skilled trades deserve respect, but only 33% said they would feel respected working in them.
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