Yes that is exactly what went down.Businesses used to have training programs, so even if you were a new, uninformed parts person, before long you were trained and competent. Then businesses figured out they could eliminate training programs and save a buck. They didn't realize they were relying on a core of well-educated personnel. Once those people retired, the un-trained employees got the job right 80% of the time, but businesses never figured out they were losing more on that 20% of failure than the training program originally cost them. Now they're whining they can't find good employees and they still haven't figured out you don't "find" good employees, you grow them.
When I started in the precision business I worked for a prototype shop.
We built some pretty cool ****.
Tank armor, aircraft cockpits, MX Missile launchers,..
Really involved old school manufacturing.
I didnt know anything about any of it.
But I did know how to convert a paper tape reader CNC and make it run off of a Fanuc controller and how to write HPGL.
Which is the only time in the history of the world that that odd knowledge ever paid off for anyone .
Right place, right time.
And the guys I learned from were true craftsmen.
Absolute Masters of their trade.
I started by programming and operating CNC punch presses.
Strippits and Di-Acros.
I learned the hand work from a guy who started in the business when he was 13 years old.
His parents sent him off to somewhere in northern England when London was being bombed and thats where he learned the trade.
Everyone of those guys were amazing
We built incredible things all by hand.
And the company was sold to a pack of little no nothing investors who thought it was just some people standing in front of machines and putting metal in.
Chased them all out, replaced them with temp service people.
And took one of the most highly regarded aerospace prototype shops in the nation from 20 million a year to bankrupt two years later.
They came out of bankruptcy.
Now they make wall brackets for toilets and urinals.