I will admit that getting greasy, busted knuckles, cut, burned, is not fun.
But who is going to do the work in our future?
Here's the real question for sure. We need plumbers, electricians, carpenters, bricklayers, techs of all sorts. Somehow those things got looked down on over time and I think that's really hurting us now. There's a interesting thought going around that "American culture" has taken a turn thanks to the pandemic. We - USA - are an outlier in many areas, including work. US workers average something like 10 weeks more work/year than German workers, 5~6 more than some other European countries. Most of us older people that have been at it for 30~40~? years grew up with "grab your ass and let's go" type environments. Newer generations don't necessarily think like that. We look and say "you're lazy, you don't like hard work". They say "What did you get for 45 years in the salt mine - you're wore ass out at 6x or 7x years. I don't want to live like that." They're not wrong, just different. I'm looking at 47 years before the mast, two different careers and can I retire? If I look hard at what I have for what I gave - it doesn't balance. If "retired" is SS income and working part time, that's the way I'm wired so no problem. Trucking seems an example - a lot of the real pro drivers were older folks and after a long time dealing with all the problems, low pay, being away from home all the time finally came to "screw this" and they left. There are very few interested in filling that gap, and we all saw how that impacted everything. I read an article not long ago about migrant farm working issues. The vast majority are older and are well into suffering the results of working years in the fields. More health issues, less physical tolerance to working outside and such. Their sons and daughters look at mom and dad and "I'll go find some better way to live." So there's a lot of work going on to find ways to mechanize crop harvesting - but there are some crops that just can't be harvested that way. Now we have two problems - who's going to fix the mechanical stuff and who's going to pick the remainder. Answers are not easily forthcoming.
Directly in this hobby we love - locally here, probably 90% of the machine type shops are gone. The owners got old, tired and closed to doors. Or, they "died doing what they loved", like in their office. There are only a couple left. Those shops have plenty of work, but is it enough to entice someone to bear the tremendous debt load to open a full featured shop, not even counting the issues that started this thread? I think diesel work primarily sustains those shops. When my ex-2020 F-350 had an engine recall for potentially mis-installed piston oilers, the dealer didn't pull the motor and inspect or repair. Ford shipped a complete 7.3 and they did a swap. Friend that runs the service section of the service sector of the local Lincoln dealer had his master tech retire. He's strapped for transmission repair and has at least one tech in training, but that takes a while. So he has to send that work out to other dealers. And yea - parts. I was in recently for an oil change and trailer control re-flash (recall) and one of the service writers was basically dedicated to calling customers to line up scheduled repair times because they finally got a shipment of parts for those jobs. Some customers waiting 6~8~10 weeks.
I work at a university and I'm encouraged that we're putting in a new Mechanical Engineering program. That's a big stretch for a traditionally small, older "liberal arts" (music/theater/humanities) institution. I hope it pays off. We have a chance to expose a new generation to making things in the new tech world. You hear the asking of companies saying "we need people that can think and do stuff" so, we're going to try. Even if not at the university level, tech schools should be getting more air play IMHO.