The collision repair industry isn’t the only field struggling with a lack of skilled workers. At the end of 2016, there were 325,000 job openings in U.S. manufacturing, out of 5.5 million total job openings, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
About 75 percent of those job openings don’t require a four-year degree – a statistic that’s not lost on actor and TV host Mike Rowe. Rowe, the former host of the Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs,” has been preaching about the skills gap for at least a decade. The problem is, few people outside of the skilled trades seem to be listening.