I have been advising young people I meet to take courses in those fields, as they can’t be outsourced to India. If I need my air conditioner fixed, they can’t ship it to India to fix it.
Young man across the street got his ticket in A/C last year and he is busy doing side work everyday, while still working a regular job.
The whole moving up to white collar work from the jobs requiring “getting your hands dirty” is bad advise now, as probably 75% of those jobs are now outsourced overseas.
Air conditioning, plumbing, electrician, mechanic are all jobs that are always needed. If you can’t find a regular job, you can do side work and make good money till you do.
Your statement “getting your hands dirty” brought to mind an incident that happened just after I opened my Industrial Electronics servicing business back in 79.
I had a job opening posted in the paper and a applicant showed up (not knowing a thing about industrial (down to board repair) electronics or machinery.
One of the first questions he asked after taking the tour was “what type of smocks do we wear?” I just grinned at him and answered “we don’t wear smocks, industrial electronics is the DIRTY electronics.” Needless to say, he was discouraged and went out to find some “clean” work to do.