WHERE HAVE ALL THE GOOD JOBS GONE? BEGGING:

Big Hands on the Little Hands (GLENN COLLINS, 9/29/05, NY Times)

The little-old-watchmaker-guy stereotype is wrong on three counts.

A lot of them aren't little, or old, or guys. In fact, because of a luxury boom, a new generation of young horologists is receiving training in an antiquated art. For despite the sleek, solid-state domination of the quartz watch and the digital display, expensive and intricate mechanical watches are back.

But very few people are qualified to repair them.

Thus, on a recent morning, Harry Papathomas, a 20-year-old mechanical adept from Madison, N.J., was using a jeweler's saw to fashion a brass file-cleaner. As the first step in his education as a watchmaker, it was a personal statement of craftsmanship, to create his own tools.

"This is an art form within the confines of a watch," he said. He is one of six students who have enlisted in a free, but highly selective, two-year, 3,000-hour training program that began this month at a new school established by the Watchmakers of Switzerland Training and Education Program, a group set up by the Swiss watch industry to standardize training worldwide.

It is now the fifth such American watchmaking school, joining others in Oklahoma, Seattle, Pennsylvania and Minnesota. The course-completion certificate is the most prestigious worldwide credential for Swiss watchmakers.

"The repairs are there, waiting, as soon as they graduate," said Paul Madden, the course instructor. Potentially 100,000 high-end watchmaking jobs are open in the United States, but only 5,000 experts are available to fill them, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, a trade group in Bienne, Switzerland, that represents 90 percent of the country's watchmakers.

When students graduate they can command a starting salary of $55,000 a year, or make six figures in their own businesses, according to the watch federation.

NPR did a story a couple years ago on how much trouble they were having filling these positions, despite the high pay. People weren't willing to do the training.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 29, 2005 6:51 AM