Interesting article. I think “skilled blue collar” is still alive and well for those who wish to go that route.
I just wish they weren’t so union-dominated.
Here in NJ, a lot of that work has either dried up as building stopped or been farmed out to illegals (1 skilled Yanqui with a crew of illegals). Workers who worked in those trades could always move to a part of the country where a boom was underway, but that hasn’t been the case in the “he”-cession; the slowdown is national.