Being wealthy is better than being poor, and being able to pay for college is better than working in construction. However, when choosing a specialty it is important to consider one's preferences. If your child don't want to be a lawyer it doesn't matter whether you can afford paying for the degree, and if he insists he would rather be fixing cars than dealing with documents, helping with a student loan is not really the best thing you can offer as a parent.

The part about blue collar jobs being inherently more deadly doesn't feel right to me. For one, I want to believe we have collectively gotten better in avoiding "dumb" deaths and injuries, these, that could have been prevented by inventing and following safety procedures. The health risks certain profession implies is certainly to be considered when choosing one, white collars included. Desk job kills slowly, but surely.

So, answering to the title, which doesn't seem to be related to the article contents, I absolutely do. Qualified engineer knows enough to be able to double off as a technician, and missing monthly payments is much scarier than high voltage, so if my entire job field was to become obsolete due to AI or any other reason, I would absolutely consider getting out of desk and getting my hands dirty.

It's not about what you believe it's about what the facts are. Deaths and injuries are much more common in blue collar wok, because of accidents or wear and tears than in white collar work

>For one, I want to believe we have collectively gotten better in avoiding "dumb" deaths and injuries, these, that could have been prevented by inventing and following safety procedures.

better, yes, but there will always be inherent risk. even if you don't die, there will often be injuries from years of strain

The article specifically mentions arborists. I don’t think there is any way to de-risk something like tree work.

You can only get so much better at reducing "dumb" deaths and injuries when you spend all day every day around things that will kill you if you touch them.