'Dirty Jobs' Star Mike Rowe Issues Alarming Warning
In particular, Rowe is worried about the large portion of able-bodied, working-age men who are not only unemployed, they've given up looking for work.
"There are able-bodied men in their working ages not only not working, but not looking," Rowe said last week on "Varney & Co." "That, to me, is one of the greatest alarm bells going on in the country. We've never seen that before, not in peacetime anyway."
Rowe cited economist Nicholas Eberstadt's book "Men Without Work," which estimates that more than 7 million working-age men have left the workforce entirely.
The Discovery Channel star has been beating the drum on this matter for a while, including on Fox News in March and in an interview with Dr. Phil last fall.
Rowe told Varney the problem is exacerbated by what he feels is an overemphasis on higher education, which has an adverse effect on the skilled labor market.
"Compare that to the open positions, and then just sprinkle on $1.7 trillion of student loans that are still outstanding," Rowe said. "You can see we've still got our thumb on the scale."
"We're still pushing a lot of kids toward a very expensive path, while the skills gap widens," Rowe added. "The skills gap is real, but there's a will gap as well."
Rowe, 63, has long been an advocate for pushing trade careers as a viable alternative to four-year degrees, and says he is encouraged by the trends he's seeing in Gen Z, loosely referred to individuals born between 1997 and 2012.
"The four-year degrees are trending down in that cohort," Rowe said. "There's a lot more interest in electricians, and plumbers, and steamfitters, and welders and pipefitters."
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