Originally post by Inc. By: Bruce Crumley – December 2, 2025
Corporate cutbacks, anemic hiring rates, and altered post-pandemic perspectives are leading more professionals to take greater interest in learning skilled trades.
Photo: Getty Images
With the job market stuck, thousands of white-collar positions being eliminated, and college degrees losing their value in hiring decisions to skills, it’s not surprising many people are abandoning previous career plans and learning a trade instead. Recently released data shows a growing number of those workers are now also turning to apprenticeships to facilitate their professional migration.
The most recent evidence of more workers — especially Gen-Zers — leaving desk-bound employment for the trades came this month from job posting platform Indeed’s Hiring Lab research unit. It noted that “searches on Indeed for ‘apprentice’ or ‘apprenticeship’ jobs have more than doubled in the past five years,” as more people consider or make major career shifts. Ongoing corporate flattening strategies to eliminate middle managers, and businesses’ having essentially halted other hiring activities since May appear to have also fueled rising interest in hands-on learning opportunities. For the first 10 months of 2025, the Hiring Lab post said, searches for apprenticeships increased by 35.4 percent.
To be sure, the momentum behind apprenticeships began building before the recent workforce strategy shifts were adopted by companies — restricting the nature and volume of jobs available as they did. Between 2010 and 2020 alone, Hiring Lab research found, the number of apprenticeships surged 113 percent. That increase was driven by “local school districts, community colleges, workforce development organizations, and even the Department of Labor” seeking to equip younger people with skills employers struggled to find.
But now, life and work changes employees themselves have been undertaking amid shifting post-pandemic priorities appear to be stoking even more interest in vocational learning opportunities. The Hiring Lab post said searches related to apprenticeships on the platform had more than doubled since February 2020, before increasing by one-third more this year.
“What might be driving this growth?” asked the Hiring Lab’s director of economic research in North America, Laura Ullrich. “It could be connected to the lackluster labor market of 2025 or the major efforts to increase the number and visibility of apprenticeships.”
But it’s likely also fueled by what Inc. has previously reported as the shift by many employees away from white-collar professions toward trade jobs. That’s been particularly marked among younger people rethinking what they want out of work beyond pay.
A July survey by Resume Builder found 42 percent of Gen-Zers were already performing blue-collar or skilled manual work, including 37 percent who possessed a bachelor’s degree. With increasing numbers of older colleagues similarly migrating to trade jobs, the rising interest in apprenticeships probably shouldn’t be surprising. Nor should their proliferation.
Indeed, companies themselves are increasingly partnering with outside programs — or creating in-house training units — to teach aspiring apprentices the skills businesses need. The reason? According to a July survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), nearly 70 percent of participating members said they struggled to find candidates with necessary qualifications when they recruited.
As a result, more employers are taking steps to offer prospective and existing employees training in skills that their work openings require. According to SHRM, its research “found programs such as apprenticeships, internships, and job rotations are effectively bridging skill gaps, with job rotations boasting a 92 percent success rate in alleviating talent shortages.”
Continuing mutation of company hierarchies, evolving hiring priorities away from college degrees, and employees’ own changing aspirations for the work they do all appear to be encouraging increased migration to the trades. Meanwhile, for many current job hunters, finding programs that can teach them new skills — and perhaps an entirely different career — may seem less daunting that facing the currently frigid labor market.
“Whatever the cause, job seekers’ interest in apprenticeships continues to climb in both absolute terms and relative to other job searches,” Ullrich said.