What if we told you that we could give you a job that would pay you about $100,000 within your first 10 years of working it? What if we told you that this job would include great benefits? What if we told you that, once you worked this job for a couple years, you’d have excellent job security because of the skills you’d learn while doing it? And, best of all, what if we told you that there are upwards of 600,000 of these jobs with vacancies across the country right now? You’d take it in a heartbeat, right?

Well, get prepared for this because we were shocked when we first read about it. And, before you ask, no, this “job” isn’t some get-rich-quick scheme that we just read about on the Internet. Rather, there is apparently a real shortage of good factory workers in America today. And, for whatever reason—mostly because of the way that factory jobs have been portrayed in pop culture over the last 50 years or so—young people don’t seem to want them. They’d rather attend college and take their chances at a white-collar job than “settle” for a gig in a factory.

Recently, CNN Money did a great piece highlighting the problem and they found that aspiring machinists—one of the most popular factory jobs—could start training at 18, do an apprenticeship for a couple of years, and be making more than $50,000 within the first five years. From there, machinists can make upwards of $100,000 with 10 years on the job. So, you’d think that young people would be lining up for these jobs. But, all indications are that factories are having trouble filling positions because young kids don’t want to apply for factory jobs. They see factory jobs are back-breaking, dead-end jobs that never amount to anything. But, many of them are going to school and then going out into the work force and having trouble finding jobs. So…why not give factories a try?

For now, factories will probably continue to struggle to find good new employees. Reports indicate that there are upwards of 600,000 of these jobs out there. But, manufacturers across the country are looking for help. And, some in the industry are hoping that manufacturing can get a makeover from pop culture at some time in the near future to give it a boost.

“There’s no easy answer to how we can change manufacturing’s image problem,” Scott Paul, the executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, told CNN Money. “Maybe we need someone cool like Clint Eastwood to say, ‘Go work in factories,’ as a follow up to his Super Bowl Chrysler ad.

Maybe. Or, maybe factories just need more articles like this one to show people that they can make a good living working in a factory. After all, if we told you all the things we mentioned in the first paragraph, wouldn’t you be interested in the job we were talking about? Those jobs are out there. You just have to go out and apply for them. So, who wants one?

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