‘Dirty Jobs’ Host Mike Rowe: It’s Time to Rethink Society’s Definition of a ‘Good Job’

The “Dirty Jobs” host says society must rethink its perceptions of higher education and skilled trades to address the current labor shortage.

Mike Rowe, of Dirty Jobs on Discovery Channel, speaks onstage during the Warner Bros. Discovery Upfront 2022 show at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City on May 18, 2022. Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery

Mike Rowe has made a career by promoting the oft-overlooked jobs that keep society running via his hit TV series “Dirty Jobs.” But in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the low workforce participation rate has left many of those industries short-staffed.

“Right now, we have 7.2 million men, able-bodied men, in the prime of their working life, who are not only not working but affirmatively not looking. What they’re looking at are screens,” Mr. Rowe noted on the Nov. 23 episode of EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders.”