Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Chris BEYONDI has made
Speaker 1: a pretty nice life for himself. He has a stable,
Speaker 1: fulfilling job with great benefits, a family he can support
Speaker 1: with a salary, and.
Speaker 2: I have a quarter of a million dollars in retirement.
Speaker 2: And most of the people that I graduated from high
Speaker 2: school with don't have a quarter of anything in retirement.
Speaker 1: So what's the story behind his success? It all came
Speaker 1: down to one decision. Chris says he became a plumber.
Speaker 2: The work is satisfying. I can drive through two states
Speaker 2: and a major city and point out all the things
Speaker 2: that I helped build or even design. Plumbing may not
Speaker 2: have been my dream job, but it is not a
Speaker 2: job I hate. It's a job I enjoy immensely.
Speaker 1: Now he works as a trainer for people looking to
Speaker 1: join his union, but with each passing year, he's noticing
Speaker 1: a decline in young people hoping to enter the field,
Speaker 1: and Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that as more
Speaker 1: and more baby boomers are set to retire, the shortage
Speaker 1: of plumbers, along with pipefitters and steamfitters, is only predicted
Speaker 1: to worsen.
Speaker 3: The official data points to an average of forty two
Speaker 3: six hundred vacancies a year over the coming decade.
Speaker 1: That's my colleague Endacurran, who covers the US economy for Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: He's looked at the numbers and recently started wondering where
Speaker 1: have all the young plumbers gone. It's a labor problem
Speaker 1: that could impact everything from America's infrastructure to its economy.
Speaker 1: Today on the show The Mighty and Misunderstood American Plumber
Speaker 1: and why the fate of this corner of the labor
Speaker 1: market matters so much? From Bloomberg News, this is the
Speaker 1: big take. I'm Sarah Holder. So you cover the US economy,
Speaker 1: you're covering labor shortages. I'm assuming in lots of industries.
Speaker 1: What motivated you to explore the situation in the plumbing industry.
Speaker 3: Well, it's one of the parts of the economy that's
Speaker 3: so critical to everything around us. And when you speak
Speaker 3: to business people, when you speak to companies, they make
Speaker 3: the point that there just aren't enough young people at
Speaker 3: learning the skilled trades anymore. So that that could be plumbing,
Speaker 3: that could be being an electrician, that could be whatever
Speaker 3: it is that involves your hands. And the point is
Speaker 3: these are critical to make in the economy. Work plumbing
Speaker 3: goes to the core of so much of what we
Speaker 3: do every day, from having clean drinking water through to
Speaker 3: getting homes and construction projects finished on time.
Speaker 1: And you recently visited a school training young plumbers outside
Speaker 1: of DC. Can you tell us about that visit?
Speaker 3: It was really interesting. So I went to two plumbing schools.
Speaker 3: One of the schools I went to was offering for
Speaker 3: the first time a pre apprenticeship program. This was in
Speaker 3: Arundel and Maryland to get young people involved on a
Speaker 3: career path for plumbing. The thing is they had eighteen
Speaker 3: places on offer, but they only received three applicants. And
Speaker 3: I stood in the lab, a very well equipped modern
Speaker 3: laboratory with the instructor three gathered around the bench, but
Speaker 3: all the other benches were emptying out. And it speaks
Speaker 3: to the idea that young kids aren't necessarily looking at
Speaker 3: this as a polential career path at the moment.
Speaker 1: And why were there all those empty seats? What are
Speaker 1: some of the barriers to entry to complete the schooling
Speaker 1: and become a plumber.
Speaker 3: So speaking to the people in the industry, there seems
Speaker 3: to be a stigma around becoming a plumber. Young people
Speaker 3: considered to be tough, dirty work. They're not really excited
Speaker 3: by the prospect of fixing toilets all day long. But
Speaker 3: when you speak to the plumbers, the educators, and those
Speaker 3: in practicing the trade, they say, there's so much more
Speaker 3: to it than that. It's not all about lying in
Speaker 3: your back with a wrench all day. The work can
Speaker 3: be varied.
Speaker 1: Chrispyondy, the plumber turned trainer, actually told us about a
Speaker 1: visit he recently made to a middle school where he
Speaker 1: tried to counter these misconceptions about his job.
Speaker 2: Went to a middle school, and I said, who knows
Speaker 2: what a plumber does? And a young lady stood up
Speaker 2: instead of plumber cleaned toilets, And so I was able
Speaker 2: to run through a slide show and say, this is
Speaker 2: what we were in this part of the Smithsonian, and
Speaker 2: we built as part of the National Zoo, and things
Speaker 2: that not just a kid would enjoy, but anybody would
Speaker 2: enjoy seeing those pictures of something that's not there, and
Speaker 2: that is suddenly an exhibit at the Zoo, or an
Speaker 2: improved exhibit at the Smithsonian or the Washington Monument after
Speaker 2: the earthquake needing repairs. So those kind of things are
Speaker 2: relatable to anybody, but it's important for us to make
Speaker 2: clear that what we do is not what people think
Speaker 2: we do.
Speaker 3: The work can be satisfying to see a project being completed,
Speaker 3: to see a problem being resolved, So it's rewarding in
Speaker 3: that respect, and it's also financially rewarding. I mean, you
Speaker 3: get a good salary. Obviously, the salary depends where you
Speaker 3: are around the country, like every industry, but the salaries
Speaker 3: can be well paid and offers pretty stable and plumbing.
Speaker 1: Can you give us a sense of the scale of
Speaker 1: the shortage and what it might translate into in terms
Speaker 1: of overall losses in the industry.
Speaker 3: There is one estimate out there that it costs the
Speaker 3: economy about thirty three billion in twenty twenty two. In
Speaker 3: other words, the country will be short of about five
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand plumbers by twenty twenty seven. So
Speaker 3: those are not immaterial figures for the US at a
Speaker 3: time of course, when workers shortages are being sort of
Speaker 3: blamed for part of the inflation story. Given what's been
Speaker 3: happening wage pressures over the past few years, it's not insignificant,
Speaker 3: and I think that's why there's a big push on
Speaker 3: now from these construction groups and from others that the
Speaker 3: government and state governments and education authorities need to do
Speaker 3: more to encourage more young people to try and get
Speaker 3: into skilled trades and offset somebody's pressures.
Speaker 1: But as you mentioned, plumbers are not the only skilled
Speaker 1: labors that the country is lacking. Construction, electricity workers. We're
Speaker 1: seeing shortages in those industries as well well, So you're right.
Speaker 3: Across construction more broadly, there are shortages of hundreds of
Speaker 3: thousands of workers in that sector. And when you speak
Speaker 3: to the people involved in construction, they are screaming out
Speaker 3: for either more skills training or better allocation of existing labor,
Speaker 3: or on the other hand, of course they want to
Speaker 3: speed up legal migration. But plumbing is pretty important because
Speaker 3: plumbing are the people that you go to to get
Speaker 3: the water flowing. You know, if there's ever a natural disaster,
Speaker 3: one of the first things that gets impacted is clean
Speaker 3: drinking water. One of the first sets of workers that
Speaker 3: you need are plumbers. So that's why they are so
Speaker 3: critical to the shortages in the construction industry.
Speaker 1: After the break, how a shortage of trained plumbers could
Speaker 1: potentially delay the green energy transition and what the industry
Speaker 1: is trying to do to shore up its rinks for
Speaker 1: the future. We're back. I've been speaking with Bloomberg's and
Speaker 1: the Current about the struggle to recruit younger workers into
Speaker 1: the plumbing profession. He says it affects wider swaths of
Speaker 1: the economy than you might initially think.
Speaker 3: First of all, the plumber shortage at the moment is
Speaker 3: being cited as an issue in terms of projects being
Speaker 3: completed and completed on time. If you cannot get the workers,
Speaker 3: you cannot get the plumbers, then the construction work cannot
Speaker 3: be done on time and it will become more expensive.
Speaker 3: Costs will be overblown. That's a common complaint. So that's
Speaker 3: a kind of a day to day on the construction side.
Speaker 3: If we have a section of the economy continuing to
Speaker 3: demand very high fees, we'll let those feed through to
Speaker 3: broader services inflation, and that does keep alive the idea
Speaker 3: that inflation will remain sticky in certain parts of the economy,
Speaker 3: even if the FED has to bring down into trates.
Speaker 3: On the other side of the economy, we have this
Speaker 3: big structural change going on at the moment for cleaner,
Speaker 3: greener energy, for more sustainable energy, but I think when
Speaker 3: we speak about the green energy transition, we probably think
Speaker 3: about solar panels, we think about electric cars. We probably
Speaker 3: don't think enough about the water aspect of it, the
Speaker 3: irrigation aspect of it, and the role of plumbers are
Speaker 3: going to have to plan it. So the green energy
Speaker 3: transition has that its core, smarter homes, more energy efficient homes,
Speaker 3: water efficient homes, smarter irrigation, sustainable practices, smarter water heaters
Speaker 3: for example, all of this, and all of that goes
Speaker 3: to plumbing at the core of it, and we're going
Speaker 3: to need young people who both know how to design
Speaker 3: and implement these new environmentally sustainable plumbing practices or else
Speaker 3: governments and all of us will not meet the green
Speaker 3: targets that are being set for us.
Speaker 1: Besides super Mario, are there any positive role models for
Speaker 1: aspiring young plumbers.
Speaker 3: That's a very interesting point. Actually, I think super Mario
Speaker 3: is probably out there as number one. When I went
Speaker 3: out to that school in Lanham, I will say there
Speaker 3: was an old vintage poster that I mentioned in the article.
Speaker 3: Was a vintage poster on the wall I was quite
Speaker 3: struck by from many decades ago, and it had a
Speaker 3: It was a plumber in and overalls with a wrench
Speaker 3: in his hand, standing on top of a globe with
Speaker 3: a crowd of admiring onlookers looking up to him, and
Speaker 3: the tagline on that was the plumber protects the health
Speaker 3: of the nation. So that's not quite super Mario, but
Speaker 3: that poster was in there to inspire the young students
Speaker 3: who go into that school that a job and plumbing
Speaker 3: isn't just a good job and well paid. We're also
Speaker 3: contributing towards the economic health of the nation.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to motivating young people to go
Speaker 1: into the trade. Chris Beyondy, who he heard from earlier,
Speaker 1: is working on it as the training director for a
Speaker 1: plumbing apprenticeship committee in Washington, d C. The trains over
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty apprentices a year. He says he
Speaker 1: actually uses the fact that so many older plumbers are
Speaker 1: retiring as a motivator for people considering the industry.
Speaker 2: I use it as a pitch point because the shortage
Speaker 2: means that my job is not going anywhere as a plumber,
Speaker 2: my job's not going anywhere. As a trainer of plumbers,
Speaker 2: it's not going anywhere. Job security is happening because of
Speaker 2: the shortage, but I would rather I don't want that
Speaker 2: to be the endgame. It can't be the endgame because
Speaker 2: things that need to keep working are going to stop
Speaker 2: working and there won't be someone to fix it. There
Speaker 2: are things that need to be built properly are not
Speaker 2: going to be built properly or not be built at
Speaker 2: all because of the shortage. And it's all the trades.
Speaker 2: They're all suffering.
Speaker 1: What do you say to young people considering the field?
Speaker 2: That is hard and it can get messy. But what
Speaker 2: I tell them is that if they want a career
Speaker 2: where they can enjoy what they do, or they will
Speaker 2: work hard, but they will actually get paid to work hard,
Speaker 2: and that they will make enough money so that they
Speaker 2: do not have to worry about paying for their children's college,
Speaker 2: They do not have to worry about what retirement looks like,
Speaker 2: they don't have to live check to check. And it
Speaker 2: sometimes takes a few years after high school for people
Speaker 2: to appreciate every single one of those things.
Speaker 1: What do you like best about your job?
Speaker 2: Okay, so what I like best about the job I
Speaker 2: have now, which is training director for our program, is
Speaker 2: I get to offer people the experience or their version
Speaker 2: of the experience that I had. We work heavily with
Speaker 2: teachers and with counselors so that we are creating advocates
Speaker 2: in the school systems. I mean, it's our job to
Speaker 2: protect the health of the nation, but we need folks
Speaker 2: to advocate for us. Otherwise we're going to keep seeing
Speaker 2: the shortage, and it's a shortage that grows every year.
Speaker 2: We're not closing that gap unless we start bringing in
Speaker 2: more people.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Big Take from Bloomberg News.
Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Holder. Today's episode was produced by Alex Ubia
Speaker 1: and Thomas lou It was edited by Aaron Edwards and
Speaker 1: Caitlin Kenney. It was mixed by Veronica Rodriguez. It was
Speaker 1: fact checked by Naomi. Our senior producers are Naomi Shavin
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth Ponso. Nicolebeamsterbor is our executive producer. Sage Bauman
Speaker 1: is head of Podcasts. We'll be back with you on Monday.