Advanced economies simply don't work like this. You cannot have an entire generation raised with the mantra "You must go to college. Take loans. Go to college" and then expect to have a strong blue collar work force. I went to college to sit at a desk at home and get a salary, not commute to a job site and make an hourly.
And even without the mantra, who the hell wants to be the skilled technician working 60 hours a week in a clean lab to push out top quality silicon, when they can be the skilled SWE fiddling with a login page for twice the pay, from their home office, for 30 hours a week?
If you break it down, it becomes more and more of an irreconcilable problem.
because different people like to do different things? twice the pay is a benefit, sure, but then you have to sit in front of screen all day long staring at it. Some people wanna work with their hands, and really don't want to sit in front of a screen, no matter how much you pay them. some people even forgo a livable amount of pay, and choose the starving artist route.
not everyone optimizes for pay, nor do they have the ability or aptitude or even desire to become a software engineer.
And even without the mantra, who the hell wants to be the skilled technician working 60 hours a week in a clean lab to push out top quality silicon, when they can be the skilled SWE fiddling with a login page for twice the pay, from their home office, for 30 hours a week?
If you break it down, it becomes more and more of an irreconcilable problem.