Ever since watches began bringing order to the ephemeral passage of time, they also started doing something else: breaking.
Own one long enough and something will probably go wrong. It’ll run slow. Or fast. Or stop altogether.
Decades ago, watch repair shops across the country were staffed with technicians who could service almost any mechanical timepiece when its intricate innards — tiny gears, wheels and springs — failed. But when the U.S. watchmaking industry declined in the mid-20th century, the number of craftspeople who could fix or fabricate timepieces began dwindling too.
There were 1,880 U.S. watch and clock repairers in 2023, down from 2,430 just three years earlier, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That 23% decline, on top of previous losses, has led some in this niche industry to label the situation a workforce crisis. It comes amid renewed interest in mechanical timepieces and a modest rebirth of the American watchmaking industry — despite the omnipresence of cellphones and their effortless timekeeping. Rolex, the Swiss behemoth, alone makes more than 1 million watches a year.
Who will be able to service all of them as they age? Or make the new ones being dreamed up?
A dearth of new watchmaking schools — where students learn about repairs, fabrication or both — is central to the problem. After the closure of several programs in recent decades, only four full-time, independent watchmaking schools remain in the U.S.
One watch company, Torrance-based J.N. Shapiro Watches — maker of the $70,000 Resurgence model — is among the handful of U.S.-based firms that has struggled to hire watchmakers.
Rolex has a solution on the repair side.
In September, the Geneva-based company debuted a new watchmaking school at the Rolex Watch Training Center in Dallas. The program’s 18-month curriculum is focused on training students to service watches made by the brand. The last six months of schooling include an immersion component in which students repair Rolex timekeepers under the supervision of instructors.
Upon graduation, participants can work for a Rolex-affiliated jeweler or for the company itself. Most of the school’s first class, which graduates next February, have already secured jobs, a Rolex spokesperson said. They can expect annual salaries starting in the range of $75,000 to $85,000, depending on location.
The school is free. The company spokesperson said in a statement that the Dallas program, which welcomes just 27 students per class, represents the company’s “commitment at a larger scale to meet the industry demand.”
Rolex’s focus on training watchmakers to work solely on its timepieces differentiates its program from independent schools, which typically teach students how to work on all sorts of watches, turning out graduates with expertise in subjects including micro-mechanics and repairs.
“I think we need a balance of technicians and then more full-service watchmakers,” said Tony Traina, who publishes Unpolished Watches, an industry newsletter. “The way in which the profession is evolving right now — it seems like we’re headed in that direction. There are the Shapiros of the world, along with the Rolexes of the world. I think we’ll reach an equilibrium.”
Rolex opened a more traditional watchmaking school in the U.S. in 2001 — the Lititz Watch Technicum in Pennsylvania, but closed it after its final class graduated this month. The Rolex school in Dallas is in high demand, with 400 applicants for its inaugural class and 560 more for the second one starting in September.
Among the applicants, the spokesperson said, were Texans who’d initially been surprised that fixing watches could be “a viable career with an established educational track.”
The average student age among the first two classes is 28; some have been admitted straight out of high school and others have a college degree. Students have backgrounds in areas such as engineering and accounting, and have had careers as musicians, teachers and communications professionals.
As head of an independent watch company, Joshua Shapiro said it was extremely difficult to find the six watchmakers who now work for him in Torrance.
“It took a lot of networking,” said Shapiro, who added that his team was assembled over several years, and that three of his watchmakers came from the Lititz school.
One of those watchmakers is Spencer Torok, 25, who graduated from Lititz three years ago. After high school, the Hilliard, Ohio, native attended Ohio Dominican University, where he took accounting classes. But Torok realized during the COVID-19 pandemic that he wanted to make a change. He’d long been interested in watches, he said, and enrolled at Lititz.
Torok said that the schooling only stoked his passion — and that he would never have gotten hired by Shapiro if not for the education he received at Lititz. “No way,” he said with a laugh. “It takes a lot of resources to train someone.”
Some American watch companies have had to go abroad to make hires.
Cameron Weiss, whose eponymous watch company was founded in L.A. in 2013 and later moved to Nashville, said he had to turn to Switzerland to recruit a watchmaker. “I’d been looking for someone with that skill level for the last 12 years,” said Weiss.
This month Weiss traveled again to Switzerland to scout for workers. He hopes the Rolex program in Dallas will help invigorate watch education in the U.S.
One of the last remaining full-service watchmaking schools in America is at Paris Junior College in Texas. Program coordinator Garrin Fraze, 24, graduated from it in 2019. He was enticed back last year by a former instructor, who asked him to take over.
“Because we are independent, we have a little bit of openness in the curriculum,” said Fraze, who also serves as head instructor of the program.
Like the Rolex school in Dallas, the Paris program is small, accommodating about 20 students. But Fraze hopes to expand it — he knows how strong demand is for watchmakers, including those who can repair Rolexes.
After his graduation from the Paris program, he got a job as the in-house watchmaker of a Fort Worth jeweler.
It was an authorized Rolex dealer.
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