The AI economy is rewriting the American Dream — and blue-collar workers are poised to win

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From the Dayton, Ohio, suburbs to boardrooms in Dallas, the employees fueling AT&T’

s next wave of growth aren’t fresh-faced college graduates with expensive four-year degrees. They’re skilled, blue-collar workers ready to get their hands dirty — and AT&T can’t find enough of them.

“We need people who know how to actually work with electricity. We need people who understand photonics. We need people who can go into folks’ homes and connect this infrastructure to make it work right,” AT&T CEO John Stankey told CNBC during a recent interview from the company’s Dallas headquarters.

“We find that we’ve got to go out and find them, train them, and incent them to come in,” he said. “It’s not like we’re growing them on trees in the United States.”