Gen Z: ditching desk jobs for trades

A new Fortune report says 75% of Gen Z link desk jobs with burnout and instability, and about 1 in 4 are considering trade work such as plumbing or electrical jobs instead of office careers. (fortune.com) That shift is showing up in a separate 2025 Resume Builder survey of 1,434 Gen Z adults, where 42% said they were already working in or pursuing blue-collar or skilled trade jobs, including 37% of respondents with a bachelor’s degree. (resumebuilder.com) The trade appeal is not just cultural; it is also arithmetic. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics says electricians had median pay of $62,350 in May 2024 and are projected to grow 9% from 2024 to 2034, with about 81,000 openings a year. (bls.gov) Plumbing pays in the same range, which helps explain why these jobs do not look like a fallback to many 20-somethings. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters had median pay of $62,970 in May 2024. (bls.gov) School enrollment is moving too. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center said high-vocational public two-year colleges posted a third straight year of strong spring growth in 2025, up 11.7% or about 91,000 students. (nscresearchcenter.org) Part of the backdrop is that office work has lost some of its old promise. Fortune’s reporting sits next to a steady run of 2026 workplace stories about artificial intelligence anxiety, return-to-office pressure, and young workers trading pay for schedule control. (fortune.com) Gen Z also came into the labor market after watching older workers go through layoffs in tech, hiring freezes in media, and years of “always on” laptop work that blurred the line between Tuesday afternoon and Sunday night. Fortune framed the trade turn as a search for “less stress” and more stability. (fortune.com) Trades still come with hard ceilings and hard days. Electricians and plumbers usually need licensing, apprenticeship hours, and physical work that can mean ladders, crawl spaces, job sites, and early mornings. (bls.gov 1) (bls.gov 2) But to a generation that saw white-collar status stop guaranteeing security, a job that fixes wiring, heat, or water can look more solid than a badge, a slide deck, or a video call calendar. The surprise is not that some Gen Z workers want trade jobs; it is that office work now has to sell itself as the safer option. (fortune.com)