Our Workforce: A Sleeping Giant?
This writer despises the mumbo jumbo among academics, government bureaucrats, and "human resource departments” (sic) regarding the needed "new technical workforce," their slippery promotion of "life-long learning" and "workplace innovation" (what is that actually, as opposed to ingenuity or creativity?).
With the battle over tariffs raging, all sorts of such folks are wringing their hands, now "concerned" and warning darkly that the USA lacks enough real workers, and that the Trump policies will make the situation far worse.
The USA does need a big, growing American blue collar (and white collar) manufacturing and industrial workforce, but the causes of the shortage are entirely different.
It was criminal: generations of Americans were miseducated, and the implication is enormous. The intention was to create yuppies and NIMBY's, Mathusians, and now the would-be "influencers," and "gig workers." No production operatives here.
The real question is: how does the USA promote the multiplication of creative, task-oriented, productive Americans, particularly among our struggling generations of young people?
Build Baby Build! - Rays of Sunshine
Now that tariffs (subject to negotiation, of course) are going up and the USA must produce for itself, a burst of sunshine is spreading across the nation. In rebuilding the US as an industrial and manufacturing superpower, the good news is that the nation is opening up a broad, and bright highway for our young men, and that once again can lead to growing families, communities and a better tomorrow.
Recall that manufacturing had been the viable pathway for the USA's high school educated males—including African Americans and Hispanic Americans -- to enter the middle class. This still existed up into the 1980's, at least in portions of the country. It is now being reborn.
Examining a November, 2024 Cato Institute/Yougov survey shows important potential, for instance among those who are employed full time. Those who “strongly agreed” or “somewhat agreed” that they would be “better off” if working in a factory instead of their current field of work, would almost triple our current manufacturing (factory) workforce. The poll finds strong interest in manufacturing jobs at maybe twice current manufacturing employment.1
Polls can always be misleading and there are birthing pains, but these pains are to be welcomed as part of again growing young families, communities and a great democratic republic!
As the USA rebuilds an almost-forgotten industrial and manufacturing prowess, Uncle Sam -- once again -- also discovers that real creativity, real problem-solving in production occurs "up and down the line" -- not just in the creation of a prototype or design. Because America outsourced much of its production, it lost a well-spring that fed its ingenuity and "can-do" spirit.
The skilled industrial and manufacturing operative and skilled craftsmen always had an important "innovation role" -- big time. (Recently, this has been abstractly acknowledged: innovation diffuses into production. This phrase still misses the point; it is always an individual that makes a concrete breakthrough and shares it; not an anonymous "diffusion" process!)
Sources of Skilled Manpower Today
There are enormous manpower capabilities that exists in the Aerospace-Defense sector, particularly the 1.3 million skilled workers among the tiered Aerospace-Defense subcontractors (small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises - SMME). Likewise the skilled manpower still exists in the Department of Defense itself, including civilian employees, and also profoundly among the 1.3 million men and women in US active-duty military service. A significant portion of these subcontractors and skilled operatives, contracted to build components for nuclear plants, advanced machine tools and infrastructure, would make a big difference in overcoming labor shortages. This author has written about this in posts on this Physical Economy Substack, and his latest book discusses this potential at some length.2
A small deployment from the US military services could also, again, run the updated CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) program for our most challenged youth - with the support and contributions of additional civilian instructors and staff. (This potential is taken up, further below.)
Americans and representatives must be willing rethink our American treasure of human potential in the military-industrial complex, waving off the British (failing) empire's and neocon's insane demands for "endless wars." To defend our nation, we need a vibrant, creative, industrial base; not another trillion dollars of resources and manpower spent on dead end, last-war weapons. Without a rethink, the USA will be hard-put to solve the now-immediate, and increasingly pressing SMME and skilled labor shortages.
Needed too, and simultaneously, are more programs to find and move ambitious individuals out of services jobs altogether, quickly and competently training them up to take productive jobs in American industries and manufacturing.
That will mean targeted recruiting efforts, focused on our current workforce, that encourage them to undertake technical skills programs that might typically run 10 to 20 weeks, for example in evenings and/or weekends. Those in the workforce can’t take time off for two- or four-year degrees; they have families to support and financial obligations to meet. A page can be taken from the new work-study programs run by community colleges, working in conjunction with eager manufacturing and industrial employers.
Turning to the next generation, how can the creation of the labor force of tomorrow be promoted?
A Space CCC: Awakening the Sleeping Giant
A Space CCC proposal, in two-tiers, was developed by this author in the course of 2019-2020, and then summarized as a proposal in a formal public comments submission to the President’s American Workforce Policy Advisory Board in May, 2020.3 America's space exploration initiatives are exciting young Americans; with a clarion call issued resolutely by the President and his team, the USA can once again fire the imaginations of our youth, as JFK did with his "Moonshot." The youth vote for Trump in the 2024 election is already clear indication that he has their ear.
One tier of the Space CCC proposal focused on supercharging and expanding existing mentorship, apprenticeship and community college programs to recruit young men (and women) into the skilled trades required for tomorrow's advanced workforce, today. At the time, vocational education systems in high schools, as they had existed into the 1960's, were RIP. Community colleges, which could provide advanced training in emerging fields, were largely underfunded—not to mention that their completion rates hovered around a third.
Five years on, the nation's community colleges are now increasingly focused. They are addressing skilled labor shortages, particularly in the industrial trades and healthcare, offering specialized training programs while partnering with local businesses, and leveraging new funding opportunities.
States and local governments actively competing to attract foreign-owned manufacturing companies, find that one way to draw interest is by offering tailored, collaborative job training programs with local community colleges. Likewise with domestic companies that are looking to build new manufacturing capacity. It is recognized more than ever that a skilled, available workforce is critical to recruiting new businesses and needed tax revenues. To fund this increasingly central role, community colleges are securing new grants and donations, including from corporations4 and government agencies.
The President's voice, directly tying such skills and capacities to our frontier exploration and colonization of space, as with the challenge of rebuilding the US as a manufacturing superpower, could now honestly and dramatically expand this nascent process. Targeted federal workforce funding, in partnerships with states and key industries such as fossil and nuclear energy, ship building, and machine tool building are vital; firm commitments must be locked-in, through inspired legislative commitments that assure private capital investment, at the scale and for the duration required.
The second tier of the Space CCC proposal, is modeled on the original Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Today it would be organized in conjunction with major federal and state infrastructure projects in collaboration with the US Army Corps of Engineers and major contractors. It would be intent on attracting young adults who had been kicked to the curb -- disadvantaged youth.
Chronic poverty is cyclical and a mind is a terrible thing to waste! A significant number of young adults are today considered "disconnected," meaning they are neither in school nor employed. A 2024 St. Louis Federal Reserve Study of that Fed branch’s eight state region reported, based on 2022 data, that 35% of young adults (defined as ages 18-24) had no income from wages or a salary—up from 22% in 1990, "a striking finding given the labor market in 2022 was the strongest on record." The authors of the study also estimated that nationally, "the number of young adults who are not enrolled in school and the large share of those not earning wages put the rate of disconnection in the U.S. at close to 1 in 4."5
Many more young men are also underemployed, as they are working part-time, 'gig' service jobs to scrape by, working way below their potential skill level and potential contribution to family and society.
The intent of a Space CCC is to take these young men (and perhaps young women in a similar, parallel program) out of their detrimental and dead-end surroundings, as was done with the original CCC beginning in the 1930's. The period of participation by an enrollee would be for two years. It is still envisaged that the logistics and administration of the (temporary) campuses or camps would be organized by the US Army Quartermaster General and US Army soldiers. (The Army, under the direction of General Douglas MacArthur, was tasked with providing the infrastructure and logistical support for the CCC program.)
We did all of this before! Other posts will be filled by civilian employees, as they were in the 1930's and early 40's. This would include the skilled, retired craftsmen brought in to mentor and provide vocational training, along with additional instructors, nurses and cooks. Other programs to be provided are basic literacy classes, classical music choruses to express once-buried humanity, and provisions for religious services. To use an analogy, this would be the equivalent of the US Army Medical Corps deployed to the battlefield; at stake are precious individual American lives!
In these camps, short-in-duration skills training programs, and credentialing for specific groups of related skills, could be integrated. (Some versions of “makerspaces” or “fab labs” could also be a pathway, including for enrollees who may appear at first to be distracted and lacking attention span.6 ) The programs and credentials might be "stacked" towards broader degrees, as in moving up from being a community college trained machinist, in a work-study program, to becoming degree-ed technical engineer in a relevant field. Eyes would be set on the future as well as focused on the work of the day.
Skilled Workforce; Not "Woke" Social Work
There is an opportunity to now step back and conceptualize what our nation and our youth require, in the context of the coming re-industrialization of the United States, as opposed to the phony, woke programs masquerading as job training. Lets look closely at the AmeriCorps NCCC program, which was proposed for suspension or closure by DOGE and that is now being undertaken by the Trump administration.7
The NCCC program itself, which includes some parks maintenance, conservation and disaster relief, employs a mere 2000 youth a year. Most Americans don't even know about Americorps - or know very little. There is, however, a bigger story here.
Until now, AmeriCorps/CNCS has been,"the largest grant maker for service and volunteering in the nation, providing support to many national and local nonprofits," such as Habitat for Humanity, City Year, Teach For America, VISTA, and conservation service corps around the country." The AmeriCorps programs operate with an annual budget of over one billion dollars,"supporting some 200,000 AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers," under the umbrella of AmeriCorps and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). Americorps fully embraced diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and pushed that out through its various funding streams. It has also failed eight consecutive audits.8
The Biden-Harris administration had been routing its insane climate agenda through AmeriCorps funding. In September 2023, President Biden announced its 'American Climate Corps' (ACC) initiative, which uses AmeriCorps dollars—taxpayer dollars—to achieve so-called 'environmental justice.' The FY 2025 Budget of 'Biden' supported 190,000 AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers. The Budget also included $8 billion in mandatory funding to support an additional 50,000 American Climate Corps members annually by 2031.
The second Trump Administration terminated the ACC initiative upon taking office, and now is reviewing the entire organization.
The Center for Renewing America has charged that, "AmeriCorps now serves as a slush fund for radical left-wing institutions and their agendas. Congress could take steps to defund and dismantle this agency, which will help the Trump administration in its effort to purge the federal bureaucracy of left-wing radicalism."9
It is clear that AmeriCorps was never organized as a national program of workforce development for America's millions of marginalized youth. What would such a program look like?
A Young 'Rip Van Winkle' Wakes Up
There is, at the heart of society, the development of the individual personality. The individual who considers circumstances, thinks, shares ideas, and makes their own discoveries. It is the individual soul who willfully initiate their own actions, wrestles with their own weaknesses, and grows up. This is also very social, starting with the shared love and conversation within the family, both immediate and extended. There are then the relationships and collaboration with a growing circle of others that develop very quickly -- at school, sports activities, church or temple, and in the neighborhoods and then at work. Then those souls form families. If Americans commit to it now, younger generations of our men and women can grow up to be the happy and resourceful scientists, builders, farmers, and parents of tomorrow.
https://www.aei.org/articles/is-there-really-pent-up-demand-for-ten-times-the-manufacturing-jobs-we-have/ (This review of the Cato/Yougov poll suffers from cynicism but nonetheless parses the numbers and gives a close reading.)
https://www.amazon.com/Rebuild-USA-Presidency-Beyond-Promethean/dp/B0DM63BP5S
https://www.commerce.gov/sites/default/files/2020-05/PublicComments_May_18_2020.pdf
https://www.ccdaily.com/2025/04/partnership-program-transforms-students-lives/
https://www.stlouisfed.org/community-development/publications/disconnected-young-adults-look-eighth-district
https://news.mit.edu/2025/bringing-manufacturing-back-america-fab-labs-0413
https://time.com/7278469/americorps-nccc-doge-funding-cuts-volunteers-community-service-program-trump/
https://edworkforce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=412087
https://americarenewing.com/issues/primer-americorps-is-another-woke-and-weaponized-scheme/ March 31, 2025