Too many jobs today have a PR problem, limiting opportunities for our young people and our economy.
The jobs that now exist and the training needed for them have changed dramatically over the past half-century, but our perceptions haven’t kept up. Consider the manufacturing industry. A sector once synonymous with grimy factory floors, repetitive labor, and aggressive offshoring is now a hub for advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and big data analytics. Yet Deloitte found that only 4 in 10 Americans would likely encourage their children to pursue a manufacturing career.
While working in Kentucky several years ago, I heard from many parents who were hesitant for their kids to go into manufacturing because they had lost manufacturing jobs due to economic factors. But the manufacturing floor and global dynamics have evolved, and their generation’s experiences may bear little resemblance to modern manufacturing work.
PERCEPTION VERSUS REALITY
Today, reshoring has gained political popularity. Advanced technologies do much of the heavy lifting, and the most in-demand skills are AI, big data, cybersecurity, and creative thinking. Still, the World Economic Forum predicts that nearly half of the 3.8 million new U.S. manufacturing jobs expected by 2033 may go unfilled. Parents may not know that many of these are quality jobs that don’t require a bachelor’s degree yet provide high wages, great benefits, and opportunities for postsecondary education and career advancement, and the employer may cover the costs. While the manufacturing industry is just one example, it comprises a wide range of occupations, from semiconductor manufacturing in clean rooms to advanced manufacturing of reinforced composite materials used for clean energy sources.
This gap between perception and reality is more than a branding problem—it’s a barrier to opportunity.
And this isn’t a criticism of parents. It’s an acknowledgement that the professionals helping students and their families explore options after high school need more—and more compelling—information on what’s available. If we want to prepare the next generation for a thriving future, we need to do a better job communicating the full range of high-quality education, training, and career pathways.
COLLEGE FOR ALL?
If the education and workforce space has branded one thing well in the past 30 years, it may be the “college for all” movement. The notion catalyzed classroom changes, like plastering pennants on the wall, that put college awareness front and center as early as kindergarten. It led to local investments in pioneering college promise programs (the Kalamazoo Promise is celebrating 20 years) to make college financially accessible to more students.
The branding was arguably too good. What started as an initiative to ensure any child, regardless of background, could go to college (such as by increasing awareness and removing barriers) turned into an assumption that every child should attend college. Conversely, many assumed that anyone who did not go to college had somehow failed.
ALTERNATE PATHWAYS
If only other paths to careers had similarly effective slogans.
The Voices of Gen Z Study, released recently by Gallup, Jobs for the Future, and the Walton Family Foundation, found that most parents of high schoolers say they know “a great deal” about only two postsecondary pathways for their child: earning a bachelor’s degree or working at a paid job. Meanwhile, only about 1 in 10 say they know a great deal about other options like completing an internship or apprenticeship, earning a short-term certificate, starting a business, or enlisting in the military.
As career paths have changed, the need to better define the skills for success in a fast-changing economy—and develop an effective PR strategy for the many quality jobs still seen as “dirty” or “less than”—has perhaps never been greater.
Too often, we in the education community have oversimplified a complex space by defining things by what they’re not, or by their relationships to other things (usually, a four-year degree). Great careers in occupations that require more education than a high school diploma but less than a four-year degree are often called “middle-skill” jobs. This reflects the type of education and training the roles require, not the skill level or capabilities needed for those fields. Similarly, industry-relevant certificates or certifications that can offer a pathway to secure, well-paying jobs are called “non-degree credentials.”
While both terms aim to highlight areas of the economy that deserve more attention, they might reinforce the idea that a college degree is the only path to success. They overlook the reality that having a degree doesn’t always mean you’ll land one of those jobs. And they reinforce the artificial either-or between college and non-college pathways into the workforce.
APPRENTICESHIPS
One area of particular PR failure is apprenticeships. The idea of learning while earning has attracted growing interest among businesses and policymakers alike, but apprenticeships are still struggling to break out of their historic association with the trades. President Trump’s Executive Order on apprenticeships, for instance, focuses predominantly on skilled trades, despite the growing number of apprenticeships that are a path to occupations such as teaching, firefighting, and advanced manufacturing. Today, over half of apprenticeships are outside of the trades. All of these programs are powerful tools for financial resilience and economic mobility, but only if people know about them.
If we want to solve this PR problem, we need a PR overhaul across the education and workforce sectors. We need compelling narratives about quality jobs, shared terminology that isn’t centered on college as a default, and storytelling that reflects the realities of today’s opportunities. We also need to provide better career guidance at earlier ages so that young people—and their parents—understand all of the options available, see the steps required to move forward, and overcome outdated perceptions. Just as the “college for all” movement sparked a shift in thinking, a similar campaign for skills-based, multiple-pathway approaches to career development could do the same.
Let’s move toward a world where the new rallying cry is about the right path for each person, not the same path. Where internships, apprenticeships, certifications, service programs, and entrepreneurship are seen not as fallback options, but as strategic choices tailored to individuals’ strengths and aspirations. Where a bachelor’s degree is one of many valid—and valued—paths, not the only one.
Maria Flynn is president and CEO of Jobs for the Future.