For decades, the standard formula for financial success was the same: go to college, get a degree, and land a prestigious white-collar job—probably a lawyer, consultant, or investment banker.
But entrepreneur and author Daniel Priestley is sounding the alarm on a major job-market shift. He suggests the traditional hierarchy of labor (white-collar over blue-collar) is actually flipping.
Priestley, founder and CEO of Dent Global, an entrepreneur accelerator, said he’s observed that the nature of the economy is changing so rapidly that he envisions a future in which “plumbers regularly earn more than lawyers,” as blue-collar roles are elevated while professional services face unprecedented disruption from AI.
“For the last 25 years I’ve been building companies from scratch and I’ve been through the Global Financial Crisis,” Priestley said during a recent appearance on the Diary of a CEO podcast. “But I have never experienced what we’re experiencing right now.”
“I’ve never seen more fear for the disruption that is coming,” he continued.
He argues we’re witnessing a “swinging pendulum” in which the high value once placed on “white-collar work behind a screen” is moving toward “blue-collar work with your hands.” Other CEOs like Ford’s Jim Farley have sounded a similar alarm, arguing there’s far more demand for blue-collar work than there are people who want to do it.
He’s concerned about staffing AI data centers and factories, which he calls a crisis affecting the “essential economy” of blue-collar workers who make up $12 trillion in U.S. GDP, according to the Aspen Institute. Farley has also said AI could wipe out half of white-collar jobs, instead ushering in mass demand for skilled trades and blue-collar work.
“There’s more than one way to the American Dream, but our whole education system is focused on four-year [college] education,” Farley said during the Aspen Ideas Festival last summer. “Hiring an entry worker at a tech company has fallen 50% since 2019. Is that really where we want all of our kids to go? Artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the U.S.”
Gen Z is already testing the plumber over the lawyer thesis
Over the past couple of years, at least some of Gen Z have started drifting away from the classic desk job path and more toward skilled trades. Enrollment in vocational-focused community colleges climbed 16% in 2023 to its highest level since the National Student Clearinghouse started tracking in 2018. This includes a surge in students studying construction trades, HVAC, and vehicle repairs.
“There’s still a stereotype that getting a university degree guarantees and results in a well-paid job, but I soon realized that isn’t the case,” Emily Shaw, a Gen Z apprentice at British construction company Redrow, told Fortune’s Orianna Rosa Royle. Some have even started their own blue-collar businesses, bringing in six-figure incomes. Another Gen Z electrician interviewed by Fortune’s Nick Lichtenberg skipped college because he said he wasn’t a good student, and now makes six figures working a trade instead.
A Jobber analysis of Labor Department data also projects demand for electricians, plumbers, and HVAC technicians will grow well above the 4% average for all occupations through 2033.
To be sure, some of Gen Z’s blue-collar pivot is driven by the same AI anxiety Priestley described—and a realization college may not really be worth it anymore. Nearly 80% of Americans have noticed an increased interest in trade careers from young adults, according to a Harris Poll survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults for Intuit Credit Karma.
How fast is change coming?
Priestley—and countless other executives—have warned that change is coming fast. And he said the shift is being accelerated by the “instantaneous” AI rollout. Unlike the Industrial Revolution, which unfolded over decades and required massive infrastructure buildout, change will come much faster in the AI era.
“The minute an AI learns how to be a lawyer in one place, it can be a lawyer in every place,” he said, because the digital network already exists. A Brookings Institute study published in February 2025 also suggests more than 30% of U.S. workers could see at least 50% of their tasks disrupted by generative AI. A 2023 commentary published by Brookings also said AI will “revolutionize” the practice of law by dramatically increasing efficiency in drafting, research, discovery, and document production, although it doesn’t argue the tech will completely eliminate the need for lawyers.
Meanwhile, blue-collar workers, such as electricians and bricklayers, are experiencing a “blue ocean” of opportunity due to a severe labor shortage. Priestley said the imbalance is due to “market distortion” from government-backed student loans.
“Lots of young people who should have been plumbers, electricians, and concreers, and brick layers went off and got a master’s degree in mating habits of butterflies or some random degree that doesn’t have a job attached and they end up in [$60,000; $70,000; $80,000] worth of debt to get this degree that no one was asking for,” he said. “That market distortion means that we now don’t have many plumbers and electricians.”
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