ForgeNow

The Game Changer in Vocational Training!

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

Not every great career starts in a classroom.
Know a young person figuring out their next move? Come see ForgeNow. Six weeks. Real skills. Lifetime career support.
HVAC · Plumbing · Electrical · Facilities Maintenance
📍 Lewisville, TX | Sat. May 2nd | 10AM–Noon 🔗 https://t.co/PZFjMdOjg8

[Hector Resendez - Trade School Secrets @TS_Secrets]

My friend got laid off from his software engineering job in 2022.

42 years old. $195k salary gone overnight.

Meta, Google, and Amazon had just cut 200,000 jobs and the market was flooded with engineers.

He spent 14 months in an electrical apprenticeship. Last year he made $160k as a journeyman electrician specializing in data center builds.

2026 at 46 years old he make $270k with over time.

The same data centers his former employer runs. He told me he will never work for anyone who can lay him off with a Zoom call again.

Neither would I.

Day 97 tagging @mikeroweworks because I want to bring awareness to the trades.

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

It’s hard to improve on this message…keep it up @TS_Secrets

[Hector Resendez - Trade School Secrets @TS_Secrets]

One of my neighbors kid went to trade school for HVAC at 18.

His parents were embarrassed because everyone around us, college is the only option promoted.

He spent $6k and started at $65k while his friends were still in school.

At 25 he got his contractor license. At 27 he opened his own shop.

Last year his company did $2.1 million in revenue with 3 trucks. His friends just started to pay off their student loans.

Now, my neighbors cant stop bragging about their son who also is our neighborhood HVAC tech.

Day 96 tagging @mikeroweworks to let everyone know that we need more kids like this.

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

Yes!

[Tyler Watkins @tradeschoolpro]

AI can't fix a burst pipe.

America is 500,000 trades workers short.

Learn plumbing, stay employed. Send me DM.

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

This is a tremendous post from @tradeschoolpro about the opportunity within the trades….parents are the obstacle!!

[Tyler Watkins @tradeschoolpro]

High schoolers are being told to go to college.

Meanwhile these jobs require zero degree and pay $60K–$100K+ in 2026:

1. HVAC Technician — $61,590

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

It’s very hard to argue with this…thank you to @GrantCardone and @joerogan for helping us get our message across! If you are intrigued by the trades, check out @ForgeNow_

[Joe Rogan Podcast News @joeroganhq]

Grant Cardone: "The roofer, the HVAC guy, the plumber, and the electrician are going to k*ll AI. They’re going to overperform. The plumber tomorrow is going to make more money than the doctor tomorrow if they know how to hustle."

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

Great to host United States Congresswoman @Bethvanduyne at @ForgeNow_ this morning. We showed off our training facility and introduced her to the staff...really enjoyed the visit!

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

@ForgeNow_ can be a resource for entry-level professionals.

[Noah @NoahKingJr]

Anthropic CEO: “50% of all entry-level Lawyers, Consultants, and Finance Professionals will be completely wiped out within the next 1–5 years."

R.I.P College students and graduates who wanted jobs 😭

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

Aboslutely

[rebelEducator @rebelEducator]

Schools don't have a funding problem, they have an administrator surplus problem

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

Everywhere you look….

[Hector Resendez - Trade School Secrets @TS_Secrets]

There are only about 25,000 elevator technicians in the entire U.S.

Let that sink in.

Now think about how many elevators exist:

• Apartments
• Hospitals
• Hotels
• Office buildings
• Airports

Every single one needs maintenance… forever.

Now here’s where it gets interesting:

Elevator techs make $100k on average
Top earners clear $150k+
With overtime in big cities? Even higher.

And the “training pipeline” everyone talks about?

It’s not 4 years of college.

It’s:

• Apprenticeship programs
• Trade-based training
• Earn while you learn

So let me get this straight…

We’re telling 18 year olds to take on $100k+ in debt…

Instead of pointing them toward a career where they can make six figures fixing elevators?

Here’s the controversial part:

The shortage isn’t because the job is bad.

It’s because no one is telling kids this path exists.

We’ve marketed college.

We’ve ignored trades like this.

And now we have a massive gap.

In 10–15 years?

The people who chose these “invisible trades” are going to look like geniuses.

Fun fact: only one out of the three elevators worked during our trip and average wait time was 10-15 mins.

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

@ForgeNow_ can help!!

[Tuki @TukiFromKL]

Anthropic just drop the jobs that’ll survive AI.

Not software engineers. Not designers. Not analysts.

Plumbers. Farmers. Electricians.

The company building the AI is literally telling you to learn a trade.

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

Meanwhile the average high-voltage electrician in Texas is 60 years old and the average low-voltage electrician is 49 years old….How about @ForgeNow?

[unusual_whales @unusual_whales]

There are only 1.6 job openings per 100 employees in white-collar service roles, the lowest level since 2015, per Bloomberg.

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

Correct

[Andrew Lokenauth @FluentInFinance]

“Go to College," they said.

Meanwhile, Plumbers are billing $150/hour and booked out for weeks.

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

3 things happening right now: 🏗️ Infrastructure demand is surging 🎓 College ROI is collapsing 🤖 AI is killing entry-level white-collar jobs
Skilled trades: recession-proof, AI-proof, debt-free.
@ForgeNow. https://t.co/wUbSw7Q1qM

[Hedgie @HedgieMarkets]

🦔 The electrician shortage is becoming a "life-or-death" problem for AI data center construction, according to the IBEW. More than 300,000 new electricians are needed over the next decade to meet AI-driven demand, while 200,000 are expected to retire. Electrical work accounts for 45-70% of total data center construction costs. Microsoft says it's the number one problem slowing their expansion. Oracle pushed completion dates from 2027 to 2028 partly due to labor shortages.

Meanwhile, Gen Z is flooding into electrical apprenticeships. Applications for commercial electrical programs jumped 70% between 2022 and 2024. One training institute saw enrollment surge 400% in four years. Starting apprentices near DC make $26/hour and journeymen earn over $120,000 plus benefits, with overtime pushing some to $200,000.

My Take
Oh the irony. The same companies remaking white-collar careers with AI are discovering their growth depends on the generation feeling the most economic whiplash from it. Entry-level white-collar job postings have dropped by a third since 2022. More than half of 2023 college graduates are working jobs that don't require a degree. And now those same young people are being recruited to build the infrastructure that's disrupting their original career paths.

I'm genuinely torn on this one. The opportunities are real and the money is good. But if the AI bubble pops or even just cools off, a lot of these data center projects get paused or cancelled. That's how construction works. You've got hundreds of thousands of people retraining for a boom that assumes hyperscaler capex keeps growing for a decade. The skills transfer to other work, but probably not at $200k. I hope it works out for people making this bet. I just wouldn't build a 30-year career plan around tech companies' current spending projections.

Hedgie🤗

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

@JamieDimon0 just said the quiet part loud: AI layoffs are coming, and we're not ready.
At @ForgeNow_ , we're not waiting on the government to catch up. We're already building the reskilling infrastructure Dimon is calling for — training workers for the roles AI can't replace and the ones it's actively creating.
The window to prepare is open. We help people climb through it.
→ https://t.co/PZFjMdOjg8
#FutureOfWork #AIReskilling #WorkforceTraining

[Milk Road AI @MilkRoadAI]

The most powerful banker on Earth just told the government to start preparing for mass UNEMPLOYMENT

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank on the planet just listed exactly how AI is being used inside his bank right now:

Risk, fraud, marketing, underwriting, note taking, idea generation, etc.

There are 600 use cases of AI across the entire bank.

50 of them he personally classifies as important.

And his philosophy on deploying it?

His exact words: "If we could use it to do something better, faster, quicker, cheaper, we are going to do it."

Then he pivoted and this is where it gets dark.

"People talk about the negatives. The risk is that it gets deployed so fast that people don't have time to adjust to it."

"There are too many layoffs and I think that's legitimate."

The CEO running the world's largest bank just called the risk of mass AI layoffs legitimate.

Then he said something no Wall Street CEO is supposed to say.

"The government should start thinking about how can we help get the benefits of AI and diminish the negatives."

Jamie Dimon is asking the government to step in.

His plan is retraining, relocation, retooling high schools, colleges, and community colleges to reskill workers.

He ended with a line that should be on the front page of every newspaper in America:

"It's all doable, if we think about how we're going to prepare for it."

[Alan Carroll @alancarroII]

Plumbers and electricians seeing AI replace everyone who went to college

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

Yes. And AI is accelerating this crisis. We're automating white-collar work while the skilled trades that can't be automated—electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs—are hemorrhaging workers. The gap Mike's describing isn't just widening, it's becoming a chasm.

[The Real Mike Rowe @mikeroweworks]

If you’re tired of seeing my face in your newsfeed or on the TV, apologies in advance, because it’s about to get a lot worse. By the end of the year, you’re going to be absolutely sick of me, due to America’s ever widening skills gap, and our ongoing attempts to close it with a record number of work ethic scholarships from mikeroweWORKS, and therefor, a record number of invitations to apply.

The situation is serious. Skilled tradespeople are retiring much faster than they’re being replaced. For every 5 that leave the workforce, two come in. The math is not sustainable, and not a week goes by that I don’t hear from some industry leader wondering if I can help with their recruiting challenges. Every trade is in demand like never before. In fact, there’s been so much outreach from so many CEO’s and elected officials, that we’ve doubled the size of our scholarship fund, and extended the application period this year from six weeks to nine months.

Last year, we received 10X the number of applications we normally get, and this year, with the disruption of AI, I suspect the number will be even higher. These are AI-proof, six-figure jobs that don’t require college debt, but instead, training. Thus, I will be cluttering up the media landscape with an onslaught of invitations to apply for scholarships, (like the one attached,) and good-natured appeals to support our efforts with a modest (or immodest) donation.

Toward that end, I’m pleased to announce that the enrollment period is officially open. Funds are now available to help train the next generation of skilled workers. My goal this year is to award $10 million in scholarships, and you’re invited to apply today. Or, if the spirit moves you, to support our efforts with a donation of any size. The donate button is big and red and hard to miss at https://t.co/uolhGspFtN.

If nothing else, please share this, so others can be similarly annoyed with another unsolicited invitation to help us close America's skills gap.

[ForgeNow @ForgeNow_]

If AI disrupts entry-level professional jobs in the next 5 years, expect renewed demand for skilled trades careers. These are high-skill, high-demand, technology-enabled jobs that can’t be automated away.