When you say 'some of these jobs', are you talking about, say, manual labour at oil wells? I have a hard time thinking of any trade that an average person would struggle to thrive in if they were willing to do the work. A few exist, but to use them as a reason to avoid trade work is disingenuous.

In fact, even working as a labourer at an oil well is easy enough that one of my friends who normally works as a graphic designer did it for a few months while traveling in Canada. The hardest part of his experience was that he didn't see his girlfriend very much.

I spent the first 23 years of my life as a weak, desk-dwelling geek. I never thought I could work a trade. I never even thought a trade was worthwhile work. Now I'm an industrial electrician with a great job and a fulfilling life. The work is 'hard', sure. There's a lot of manual labour and the sites we work at (abattoirs, waste water treatment plants, chemical mixing plants etc) are all unpleasant for one reason or another, but the day you get over yourself and get properly stuck into the job you realise that it's actually worthwhile work and it isn't even very hard. Even for somebody who spent the majority of their life training to work at a desk.

Comparing trade work to being an elite athlete is absurd, too. Statistically speaking, there's no reason what so ever that would prevent you from doing well in a trade. Quite the opposite. Most trades just require somebody willing to do the work. They don't require unusually high IQ (although high creativity can be great for problem solving), they don't require unusually high fitness, they just require somebody to do the work. If you want to do well, do lots of work.

It's pretty simple. Most people just aren't willing to do it because they don't think trade work is respectable. Oh, and it's 'hard'.

Just going from the examples given. Welding or any construction in typical Louisiana weather.

And, I am far from against trade work. If anything, I wish I had been more considering of them when I was younger.

Regarding my comparison. I meant simply that it was similar. Most "trade" jobs are things that you can make decent money on, certainly. Interestingly enough, so are most "sport" related jobs. You may not be the star athlete, but a lot of "mediocre" sport jobs pay quite decently. Especially if you are able to fully devote yourself to it. To think just getting your foot in the door is a sure path to that "straight line to a 6 figure salary" is absurd.

Some people feel physical work is easier. Some people feel cognitive work is easier. Strangely enough, the subjective ease of the work has little to do with your actual relative ability at it: I've had really stressful or depressing times working in a programming job or a grad-school environment, but I would certainly say my brain is my strong-suit rather than my muscles. In contrast, if I have physical work to do and can let my mind wander a bit more, I find it very easy, if somewhat boring.

I don't think inability to perform these jobs is the limiting factor. In the past, larger percentages of the population have had hard labor jobs.

Maybe we're all fatter, but if we are talking about 18 year olds getting into a physically demanding job, that should be far less of an issue (less of an issue as it would be for, say, a 35 year old, who has had 17 more years of their body decaying and 17 more years of eating too much).

My guess is that the ages of the people involved in many of these situations is a touch higher than 18. Also, beware considerations of the past. In the past, larger percentages of the population died before hitting 15 years of age.

Yes, most unemployed people are probably much older than 18. However most people making the decision to go to college, or go into various trades, are 18 or younger. That seems to be the age bracket Mike Rowe is primarily talking about.

The specific example was about a large influx of trainees into post Katrina Louisiana. That is the scenario I was mainly talking about.

The general point about kids not necessarily needing to go to college, I 100% agree with. Though, all of the numbers I've ever been shown do paint a picture that statistically you are better off doing so than not.