If you ever sat across a desk from a teenager and told them a degree was the safe bet — and plenty of us have — today's issue might sting a little.
The world's biggest recruiter just said the quiet part out loud:
Your advice is ageing fast.
Coffee at the ready…
The Big Sip
Female apprentice engineer working with CNC machine in a factory.
Skilled trades now beat a college degree for fast money, says the boss of the world's largest staffing firm, and AI is the reason.
Randstad CEO Sander van’t Noordende told CNBC the days of going to college for an office job "are over." His receipt: a 30% US wage bump for trades in four years. The one force everyone said would gut the job market is quietly handing out the biggest raises.
The trigger sits inside a $700bn spending number (and it explains exactly who gets paid).
The AI came for the desk jobs and left a "now hiring" sign on the building site.
Here’s Your Brew
The driver is concrete.
Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon plan to spend close to $700bn this year on data centres and AI kit. Someone has to pour the concrete, run the cable, and bolt in the cooling.
A model cannot build its own server hall.
So demand for the hands has exploded.
Randstad combed 50 million job postings and found robotic-technician vacancies up 107% since 2022, with HVAC and automation roles close behind. Pay chased the shortage: US trade wages jumped 30% in four years.
Germany and the Netherlands saw double-digit rises too (not a one-country fluke).
Scarcity is doing the talking.
TV host Mike Rowe says he met three electricians under 30 at a Texas data centre, each of whom had been poached three times in 18 months. Firms are now building their own pipelines: AT&T is investing around $38bn in its network over five years, with a slice allocated to training front-line workers.
This is what people call "new-collar" work — trade skills, professional pay.
But "college is over" is a stretch the data does not back. Graduates still earn roughly $1m more over the course of their careers, and the wage premium sits near a 30-year high.
The honest read is narrower: the trades are a good bet now, and a generic degree is a worse one than your parents think.
Two Sides, One Mug
Pro: Trades offer six-figure ceilings, no debt, and work AI cannot do remotely — a rare safe harbour as it eats junior office roles.
Con: A degree still adds about $1m in lifetime earnings, and the data centre rush will not build forever.
Our read: "Skip college" is clickbait; "pick the path with real demand and no debt" is the actual lesson.
Receipt of the Day
[Report] College Board — "Education Pays 2026"
Four-year graduates still earn about 60% more than high school grads, a premium that has been steady for decades.
Why it matters: It is the cleanest counter to the "college is dead" headline — the degree still pays, but only if the major does.
Spit Take
Rowe met data centre electricians under 30 earning $260,000.
Extra Curricular Coffee Break Links
[Report] CNBC — "College career path 'over' as skilled trades get 30% pay bump" — The interview lighting the fuse, with Randstad's full wage data by country.
[Analysis] LumiChats — "Data Centre Electricians Are Making $140K With No College Degree" — A field guide to the "new-collar" roles the buildout is minting right now.
[Report] Minneapolis Fed — "What happened to the college wage premium?" — The nuance the headlines skip: the gap still favours graduates, but it has stopped widening.
Mugshot 📊
If a smart 18-year-old asked you today, you'd tell them to:
Learn a trade
Get the degree
Do both somehow
Run, it's a trap
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