America must rebuild long-term careers and expand skilled trades training to address worker shortages and widen access to investment wealth, BlackRock chairman and chief executive Larry Fink has said.
Speaking at Ford’s Accelerate forum at Michigan Central, Fink said the country had lost the stability once provided by a career that could last a lifetime. He argued that well-paid skilled trades careers could help restore that security while enabling more workers to save for retirement and invest in the economy.
“When you think about what the bedrock of America was, it was about having a career,” Fink said. “I think we lost that.”
He said the growth of people moving between jobs had weakened their connection to employers and reduced stability for families. A career should provide a path through raising children, building their careers and reaching retirement, he said, but “this is more of a fantasy than a reality for too many families”.
Fink recalled that his father had held one job in his career: running a shoe shop where Fink began working at the age of 11. “I don’t think anyone was paid minimum wage,” he joked when asked whether his work had been legal.
The panel, titled “America’s Skilled Trades Resurgence: A Call for Collective Action”, also featured Ford chief executive Jim Farley, Carhartt president and chief executive Linda Hubbard, and Alphabet and Google president and chief investment officer Ruth Porat. Journalist Poppy Harlow moderated.
A report discussed at the event projects about 1.7 million skilled-trades vacancies a year through 2035. Harlow said it found that only 55 people were being trained for every 100 available jobs, while about half of those who begin training programmes complete them.
Skilled trades careers and the apprenticeship gap
Farley said high-quality apprenticeships could provide a route into stable employment, but trainees often needed help with costs outside the classroom. Transport, childcare and the loss of income while training could all prevent people from completing a programme, he said.
“It doesn’t matter how good the programme is,” Farley said. “You’re not going to make it through.”
He called for accredited programmes to be linked to employers, allowing apprentices to have a job while they train. Such support exists in the United States but is “way too uncommon”, he said.
Farley said his own family had benefited from the trades. His grandfather was an hourly Ford worker whose skilled job helped put Farley’s mother through college.
“I think these jobs are good jobs,” Farley said. “They changed America, and they can change America again.”
Fink linked the decline in career stability to a widening gap between wages and returns from investments. He said people who had invested in the US stock market over the past 25 years had received a compounded return of about 10% a year, while wages had not risen at the same pace.
Figures cited at the event show that the S&P 500 returned about 10% a year, including reinvested dividends, from the end of September 2001 to this week. Over a similar period, median weekly earnings for a full-time worker rose from 596 dollars in the third quarter of 2001 to 1,251 dollars in the second quarter of 2026, equivalent to growth of about 3% a year.
The length of time workers stay with employers does not entirely support Fink’s argument. The median wage and salary worker had been with their current employer for 4.1 years in January 2026, compared with 3.5 years in January 1983.
However, the decline is more marked among older men. Men aged between 55 and 64 had been with their employer for a median of 15.3 years in 1983, compared with 9.6 years in January 2026. Among men aged 45 to 54, the figure fell from 12.8 years to 7.7 years.
Fink said BlackRock, one of the largest investors in retirement savings, was focusing not only on long-term investment outcomes but also on “investing in the beginnings of a career”. He argued that higher-paid trades jobs could give workers the means to build retirement savings and invest in the economy.
He said he remained optimistic about the US and expected an investment boom in bridges, airports, ports and technology. But shortages of plumbers, welders, electricians and other skilled workers were already slowing projects, he said.
Porat said people she had met at training sites described the trades not as temporary employment but as careers that were changing their families’ lives. She recalled meeting a welding trainee who had been working as a bartender while trying to provide healthcare and stability for her two children after her husband died.
Hubbard said cultural attitudes were also holding back recruitment. Although 84% of students surveyed agreed that trades work deserved respect, only 33% said they would feel respected by others if they pursued it.
“Guidance counsellors aren’t talking about this as an option to high school students,” Hubbard said, adding that parents and families might not be discussing it enough either.
