Business 5 min read By Alice Ashford
Partnerships Seen as Key to Turning Breakthrough Technology into Industry Change
Innovation rarely happens in isolation, and the right partnerships can help breakthrough technology reshape entire industries, according to analysis of leadership and workforce trends.
Breakthrough technology alone does not transform an industry. The leadership skill that carries innovation further is the ability to build the right partnerships, according to an assessment of how companies turn technical advances into lasting change.
The central argument is that great innovation does not happen in isolation. Partnerships allow firms to combine capabilities, share risk and accelerate adoption in ways that a single company, however inventive, cannot achieve on its own. That makes collaboration a core leadership competency rather than a peripheral activity.
The point carries particular weight in sectors where technological change is colliding with acute workforce shortages. Skilled trades are a case in point. Research published by the nonprofits Jobs for the Future and the Burning Glass Institute found that there will be 1.7 million skilled trades job openings every year through 2035, including 600,000 new net positions over the same period.
Those roles are increasingly tied to the technology economy. Demand has been driven by the construction of data centres to support artificial intelligence, by higher defence production and by the need for affordable housing. The trades workforce numbers around 18 million people and added an estimated $3.8 trillion to US GDP last year.
Yet the pipeline is under strain. Nearly a quarter of skilled trade workers are 55 or older, while only 11 per cent are under 25. In some occupations, such as tool and die making, almost half the workforce is over 55. Mike Rowe, host of the television programme Dirty Jobs, framed the problem bluntly: for every five tradespeople who retire, only two replace them.
Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute, described the challenge as a bathtub with a faucet and a drain. «We also have a very leaky pipeline,» he said. Of 100 people who begin an apprenticeship or community college workforce programme, only about 48 finish, he noted. Smaller trade and vocational programmes often lack the financial and staffing resources that four-year colleges use to slow attrition.
The shortage has deep historical roots. In the mid-to-late 20th century, trade jobs were prized. The baby boom added around 77 million people to the US population, many entering the workforce in the 1960s and 1970s when public works and suburban housing projects surged. Vocational training in schools helped supply that workforce. But manufacturing employment peaked in 1979, and the shift to a service-based economy, combined with the growing affordability of college, shrank opportunities in the trades by the end of the century.
Attitudes may be shifting. Generation Z has grown frustrated with the often prohibitive cost of higher education, and messaging about artificial intelligence displacing entry-level white-collar work has pushed some towards trade positions. A study by the Ad Council Research Institute of more than 3,000 high school students and 25,000 parents found that 71 per cent of teenagers said they would be proud to attend a trade school, yet just 9 per cent considered a postgraduate career in the trades.
Industry is responding. General Motors has invested nearly $200 million over the past year to modernise internal skilled trade careers and manufacturing, engineering and technician roles. Technicians can earn between $80,000 and $90,000 on average. Chief executive Mary Barra said the priority was to ensure high school students understand that this is a great career and perhaps more resilient to AI than some alternatives.
For leaders, the lesson is that technology breakthroughs and workforce development are linked. Partnerships between companies, educators and training providers can widen who believes a trade career is open to them and help close the gap between innovation and the people needed to deliver it. Without that collaborative layer, even the most promising technology risks stalling before it reaches the scale that changes an industry.
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