This story was originally published on KUOW.

Earlier this year, the CEO of artificial intelligence company Anthropic predicted the technology will lead to a sort of white-collar bloodbath. That uncertainty in the white-collar workforce has more young people turning to blue-collar work.

It’s the reason Brendan Hancock is about to graduate for the second time. The 40-year-old said his English degree from a traditional four-year college didn’t amount to the stable career he was looking for.

“I don't think I've ever seen a job ad that said ‘English degree required,’” he said.

Hancock took a gig teaching English overseas in Ukraine and Asia, but said, “the type of teaching I was doing, it was really inconsistent, and my schedule could be horrible at times.”

So, he decided to start over at the Northwest Washington Electrical Industry Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee in Mount Vernon, Washington, about an hour north of Seattle.

“Going back to university when I had already been to university and not gotten a career out of it wasn't very appealing,” he said.

This time around, Hancock gets paid while he’s studying and working. On top of that, he’s guaranteed a job when he graduates. He’s one of many job seekers turning to the skilled trades for a sense of stability at a time when paying for college is starting to feel like a risky bet.

Apprenticeship programs are growing steadily across the U.S. Enrollment in two-year, trade-focused college programs increased almost 20% since 2020, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

“I think we're actually probably on par for this to be a record-breaking year,” said Ryan Bradt, the training director at another electrician’s school near Seattle. He said in the past few years, he’s seen a lot more young people choose the trades straight out of high school.

“They're cognizant and they're aware the labor market is shifting and they're definitely questioning the value of a college degree in today's labor market,” he said.

That shift is showing up at Seattle Public Schools, where a pre-apprenticeship track prepares students to go into the building trades. The first two programs are completely full. Coordinator Jay Connolly said the district is opening a third location to meet demand.

“As the programs become more popular, I'm getting more middle-class kids with white-collar parents who are asking a lot of questions like, ‘Is this smart?’ or really want me to understand that their child would be perfectly capable of succeeding in a four-year college,” he said.

That stigma just goes to show what a bad rap trade school developed in the 1990s, when most students were pushed toward a college prep education. It used to seem like a simple deal: invest in college up front and get a good job later. But that turned out to be a broken promise for some graduates, including Chris Reed.

“For me, personally, the time and investment that I put into that didn't end up working out,” he said.

Reed couldn’t find a job that made use of his sociology degree, so when he graduated right before the Great Recession, he started working at a bike shop.

“I was just told that's what I was supposed to do, and if I did that, it would lead to a good job,” he said. “But me and pretty much everybody I knew didn't have jobs when we got out of college.”

Now, he’s studying to become an electrician near Seattle, and he’s hoping that with the data center building boom, the new career path will have more prospects.