For subscribers
Ditch textbooks and learn how to use a wrench to AI-proof your job?
Generation Z is becoming less invested in university and more interested in skilled trades.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Apprenticeship schemes are attracting young people like Lona Hughes into skilled vocations. A trainee machinist, she took part in the national trades competition in France in October.
PHOTO : AFP
Follow topic:
Mr Jacob Palmer knew little about skilled manual jobs growing up, save that they were “dirty, sweaty” and “definitely seemed like lowbrow”. But it took only a year of remote learning during the Covid-19 pandemic for Mr Palmer, who grew up in North Carolina, to realise that university was not for him. He dropped out after his freshman year, spent the next two years training as an apprentice electrician and started his own business in 2024.
Though just 23 years old, he now has a warehouse, a pickup truck and a YouTube channel with more than 33,000 subscribers who watch him fix devices ranging from smoke detectors to Tesla chargers. He expects to generate US$155,000 (S$200,000) in revenue in 2025, of which 10 per cent will come from YouTube.
