These Jobs Pay $100,000 Without A College Degree. Jamie Dimon Says AI Can’t Take Them.

There is a category of American job that pays six figures, requires no college degree, and, according to one of the most powerful voices on Wall Street, is far harder for artificial intelligence to erase than a desk job. JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM | JPM Price Prediction) CEO Jamie Dimon laid out the case this week, tying it to a national shortage he says runs into the hundreds of thousands.

Speaking to CNBC from the Philadelphia Navy Yard on July 15, 2026, Dimon put a number on it: “We need 300,000 electricians, welders, etc. to build ships in the next five or 10 years.” The country is trying to rebuild an American shipbuilding industry that has fallen behind rivals like China and South Korea, and it does not have nearly enough skilled tradespeople to do it. That shortage is an opportunity for young Americans who do not want to take on college debt or cannot afford to.

Skilled trade roles can pay around $100,000 without a four-year degree, and the path to them often looks nothing like the traditional college route. For context, median usual weekly earnings for full-time U.S. workers ran $1,235 in the first quarter of 2026, and average hourly earnings across the private sector sat at $37.64 in June 2026. Many apprenticeships pay workers while they train, building income and skills simultaneously rather than piling up student loans first.

Then there is the AI angle, central to why Dimon is pitching these jobs now. He argues that hands-on trades like welding and electrical work are more resistant to automation than many white-collar positions. That is Dimon’s characterization, not a settled fact, but it lands at a moment of real anxiety about AI-driven layoffs. It is harder for software to weld a submarine hull than to automate a spreadsheet.

The comments came with money attached. Dimon announced a $24 million package, an $18 million mix of loans and investments plus $6 million in grants, to help finance a new submarine manufacturing facility at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, built in partnership with Hanwha, a South Korean shipbuilding conglomerate with a U.S. subsidiary. “The arsenal of democracy has been reignited,” Dimon said. The investment sits inside JPMorgan’s broader $1.5 trillion initiative to finance industries the bank considers critical to U.S. economic and national security, shipbuilding among them.

Dimon has separately acknowledged that JPMorgan itself has cut jobs by as much as 30% to 40% in certain departments because of AI adoption, even after previously downplaying AI’s role in job losses. The same executive who sees AI thinning white-collar ranks at his own bank is pointing young people toward trades he believes the technology cannot touch. That contrast is the whole argument.

Skilled trades apprenticeships often pay you while you learn, sidestep the student debt shadowing the four-year-degree path, and, if Dimon is right, may offer more staying power against AI disruption than some office jobs. With 7.59 million job openings across the economy as of May 2026 and a national push behind shipyards and factories, the demand is not theoretical. For a young worker deciding what comes after high school, a welding torch may prove a safer bet than a resume built for a job an algorithm is learning to do.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.