The U.S. Navy is trying to grow and modernize its fleet at the same time its shipyards are struggling to find and keep enough skilled workers. The problem is not that the United States has forgotten how to build warships, but that the economic and cultural incentives pulling workers away from the yards are stronger than the ones pulling them in. To understand why the Navy cannot hire enough shipbuilders, I have to follow the money, the working conditions, and the long arc of how America has treated industrial labor.
Shipyard jobs are losing the wage war
At the heart of the hiring crunch is a simple market reality: many potential recruits can earn similar or better pay in less punishing jobs. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro has acknowledged that shipyards are competing with big-box logistics and e‑commerce employers that offer steady schedules, climate control, and clear promotion ladders. In public remarks, he has pointed to the fact that workers can often make more money at large retailers and warehouses than they can starting out in a yard cutting steel or crawling through hulls, a gap that makes it harder to persuade people to choose shipbuilding over a job that looks safer and more predictable.
That pay comparison is not abstract. Del Toro has specifically contrasted entry-level shipyard roles with jobs at companies like Amazon, noting that some workers can “make more at Amazon” than they do building warships, a line that has been widely circulated and debated after being reported in detail by outlets covering his comments on relative wages. When the Navy’s own civilian leadership is publicly conceding that its industrial base cannot match the compensation and conditions of a warehouse floor, it signals a structural disadvantage that no patriotic recruiting slogan can easily overcome.
Hard work, harsh conditions, and a generational divide
Even when pay is competitive on paper, the nature of shipyard work makes recruiting a harder sell. Building a destroyer or submarine is physically demanding, often dirty, and sometimes dangerous, involving welding in tight spaces, working at heights, and spending long hours outdoors in extreme heat or cold. Del Toro has described it as “hard work” that many younger workers are reluctant to take on, a point that surfaced in coverage of his comments about how difficult it is to get people to “come work in the shipyards” despite the strategic importance of the mission, as reflected in reports on his warning that it is hard to get workers into those roles.
That message has ricocheted through military and labor communities online, where sailors, veterans, and civilian workers have dissected the gap between leadership rhetoric and day-to-day reality. On one Navy-focused forum, users reacted to Del Toro’s remarks by describing long shifts, chronic overtime, and a sense that management expects near-limitless availability from a shrinking workforce, reinforcing the idea that the jobs are grueling in ways that are not fully captured by official talking points about “good careers” in the yards, a sentiment that threads through discussions on Navy community boards. In that light, the hiring problem looks less like a mystery and more like a predictable response to a labor market where younger workers have more options and less tolerance for what they see as exploitative conditions.
Workers are pushing back on the old bargain
The backlash to Del Toro’s comments has been especially sharp in broader labor circles, where many see the shipbuilding crunch as a symptom of a deeper shift in how workers value their time and health. On antiwork forums and social channels, users have seized on his remarks as proof that employers still expect people to accept physically punishing jobs for wages that no longer justify the tradeoffs, especially when those same workers can find less hazardous roles in logistics, retail, or the trades. The tone of those conversations is not anti-military so much as anti-status quo, with posters arguing that if the Navy wants shipbuilders, it should pay them like the critical defense workers they are, a theme that runs through reactions on antiwork discussion threads.
Military-focused communities have echoed some of that skepticism, but with an added layer of frustration about readiness and national security. Commenters with shipyard or fleet experience describe chronic understaffing, schedule slips, and maintenance backlogs that they link directly to the inability to recruit and retain enough skilled tradespeople. Some argue that leadership is too quick to blame “kids these days” and too slow to confront the structural issues of pay, housing costs near major yards, and the strain of unpredictable overtime, concerns that surface repeatedly in posts on military forums. Taken together, those voices suggest that the old bargain of tough work in exchange for stable, middle-class security no longer feels credible to the very people the Navy needs most.
Skills are eroding faster than they can be replaced
Beyond raw headcount, the Navy faces a quieter crisis in the specialized skills required to build and maintain a modern fleet. Complex warships depend on master welders, pipefitters, electricians, and naval architects whose expertise is built over decades, not months. Analysts have warned that as older workers retire, the industrial base is at risk of losing “vital shipbuilding skills” that cannot be quickly regenerated, especially if younger workers cycle in and out of the yards before they can absorb that institutional knowledge, a concern laid out starkly in assessments of how the Navy is at risk of losing skills that underpin its entire construction pipeline.
Industry leaders have been blunt that the problem is not technical know-how in the abstract but the capacity to apply it at scale with a stable, experienced workforce. One top shipbuilder has argued that American yards still understand how to design and assemble advanced warships, but that they are constrained by workforce shortages, training bottlenecks, and the churn of new hires who leave before they become fully proficient. That perspective reframes the debate: the bottleneck is not blueprints or technology, but the human capital needed to turn steel and systems into finished hulls, a point underscored in interviews where executives stress that the issue is not that the industry “doesn’t know how to build warships” but that it lacks the sustained manpower to do so efficiently, as captured in reporting on a top shipbuilder’s warning.
Fleet goals are colliding with industrial reality
The hiring shortfall is not happening in a vacuum; it is colliding with ambitious plans to expand and modernize the Navy’s fleet in an era of rising competition at sea. Defense commentators have highlighted that the United States already faces an “insufficient fleet size” relative to its global commitments, and that shipbuilding delays and cost overruns are compounding the challenge of keeping up with rivals that are launching new hulls at a faster pace. Those concerns have filtered into mainstream coverage that frames the workforce crunch as a direct threat to the Navy’s ability to field enough ships, with one widely shared analysis warning that the service faces “shipbuilding issues and an insufficient fleet size” that could undermine deterrence if not addressed, a warning amplified in posts summarizing how the Navy faces shipbuilding issues tied to its industrial base.
Social media has turned those strategic worries into viral talking points, with clips of Del Toro’s comments and charts of fleet numbers circulating alongside criticism of both industry and government. One widely viewed post highlighted his admission about workers choosing better-paying civilian jobs, framing it as a symbol of how the United States is struggling to align its defense ambitions with its labor market, a narrative that has been reinforced by coverage on platforms where the Navy’s workforce problem is boiled down to a few stark sentences about pay and conditions, as seen in a widely shared social post summarizing his remarks. The result is a rare convergence of strategic analysts and rank-and-file workers agreeing on one point: without a stronger, more sustainable shipbuilding workforce, fleet plans are little more than paper.
This is not the first time Washington has worried about shipyard labor
For all the modern twists, the anxiety about shipyard manpower has deep roots in American political history. During the Vietnam era, members of Congress were already warning that the nation’s ability to build and repair ships depended on maintaining a robust industrial workforce, and they debated how pay, training, and regional economic shifts were affecting the yards. Congressional records from that period show lawmakers grappling with the tension between budget pressures and the need to keep skilled tradespeople on the rolls, underscoring that the basic dilemma of how to sustain a shipbuilding labor pool in peacetime is not new, as reflected in a 1969 entry in the Congressional Record that details concerns about naval shipyard capacity.
What has changed is the competitive landscape for workers and the visibility of their frustrations. In the late 1960s, a shipyard job was often one of the best options in town, with strong unions and relatively secure benefits. Today, the same regions may be dotted with logistics hubs, tech warehouses, and service-sector employers that can match or beat shipyard pay without asking employees to weld inside a hull at midnight. That shift helps explain why Del Toro’s comments have drawn such sharp reactions: they are not just about one industry, but about whether the country is willing to invest in industrial labor at a level that reflects its strategic importance, a question that has been debated intensely in online spaces where his remarks about how “hard” it is to get workers have become a flashpoint, as seen in threads dissecting his statements on Navy-focused forums.
Fixing the pipeline will require more than patriotic appeals
Looking across the evidence, I see a consistent pattern: the Navy and its shipbuilders are asking workers to shoulder high-risk, high-skill jobs while offering compensation and conditions that no longer stand out in a tight labor market. Patriotic appeals and talk of “mission” can help at the margins, but they cannot substitute for competitive wages, predictable schedules, and serious investment in training and career progression. Industry voices who insist that the problem is not technical capability but workforce capacity are effectively arguing that the United States must treat shipbuilding labor as a strategic asset, not a cost center to be squeezed, a view that aligns with warnings about the erosion of critical shipbuilding skills if current trends continue.
For now, the gap between rhetoric and reality remains wide. Del Toro’s acknowledgment that workers can earn more in civilian warehouses than in the yards has become a shorthand for that disconnect, circulating in news reports and social posts that highlight how the Navy is losing the competition for talent to employers that did not exist in their current form a generation ago, as captured in coverage of his comparison to Amazon-level pay. Until shipyard jobs once again offer a clearly superior deal in pay, safety, and long-term security, the Navy will keep struggling to hire enough shipbuilders, no matter how urgent its fleet plans or how stark the warnings from strategists about the risks of falling behind.
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