As the latest crop of Generation Z graduates struggles with a volatile and unfriendly job market, some of their younger siblings are looking to vocational colleges.
In Minnesota and other rural areas, many are looking at a trade that's certainly not new — but, as MinnPost reported, steadily rising electric vehicle adoption has created novel opportunities for the youngest generation of aspiring mechanics.
Over the past few years, careers in skilled trades have become more attractive to young people. MinnPost visited Minnesota State Community and Technical College in Moorhead, where mechanics in training are learning to service the growing number of EVs on American roads.
The reporting was one entry in a seven-part series on how clean energy is creating job opportunities in rural America, and the outlet spoke with two enrollees, Joel Duncan and Haidyn Emerson.
Both are training to work on cars, but "unlike most of their predecessors," the young men are learning to service gas-powered ones alongside EVs.
MinnPost observed that, despite a current "political gear shift" away from electrification, career prospects for EV mechanics looked promising in a field with significant momentum. Funding for the program hasn't been affected, said Minnesota State grant coordinator Cindy Bailey.
"The fact of the matter is, whatever the political climate and landscape, people own electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles. We owe it to our students to provide the most well-rounded training to make them competitive in the labor market," Bailey explained, per MinnPost.
In all, there are nearly 80,000 EVs on Minnesota roads, and the share of all-electric cars registered has increased each year for the last decade. Minnesota aims to make that number one in five by 2030, and the students are broaching EVs next semester.
Although EVs are safe to drive and own, working on them requires specialized training. While he has since retired, Olle Gladso took an interest in EV mechanics and helped design the curriculum at Minnesota State.
He told MinnPost that because EVs are "simpler, they're cheaper to maintain and they're more reliable," their widespread adoption is "inevitable." However, he noted that EV mechanics need an electrician's knowledge of "electrical concepts."
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Yes — in the next 6 months 🙌 "When it's an 800-volt circuit, you don't have to touch it for it to kill. Just get close enough and it'll electrocute you," Gladso acknowledged, characterizing the work as something of a midpoint between electrical work and legacy automotive servicing.
Ultimately, the shift to EVs has given Gladso hope for the future of automotive mechanics.
"You're always going to need somebody to fix your car," he remarked.
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