Skilled machinist Chad Toulouse illustrates the modern blue-collar worker. After an 18-week training course, this former college student now works as team leader in a plant where about 40 percent of the machines are automated. In older plants, machinists would manually that cut chunks of metal into things like engine parts. Today, Chad and his team spend much of their time typing commands into computerized machines chat create precision parts for products including water pumps. Like other modern machinists, he earns about $45,000 per year (including overtime).16