As AI sweeps into white-collar workplaces, old-timey hands-on jobs are getting a new look—and some of those professions even have shortages.
Consider tailors. Sewing is a vanishing skill, much like lacemaking and watchmaking, putting tailors in short supply when big retailers like Nordstrom and Men’s Wearhouse, as well as fashion designers and local dry cleaners, say they need more of them.
The job, which can take years to master, can be a tough sell to younger generations more accustomed to instant gratification. But apprenticeships that offer pay to learn on the job and new training programs are helping entice more people.
“It’s not glamorous and not something you want to post about on social media,” says Khaleel Bennett, a 30-year-old who lives in Queens, N.Y. “But it’s a skill that will carry me for life.”
Bennett had been working as a technical designer for a fashion company, responsible for verifying that production met quality and construction standards. When he was laid off, he had trouble finding a new job. Then he came across a new Nordstrom-backed program at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology that teaches custom alterations and tailoring.
Bennett completed the training late last year and is now a tailor’s apprentice at the department-store chain, where he is getting real-life experience on the intricacies of pant hems. (Denim requires a different technique than slacks. For denim, the original hem is cut, the pant leg is shortened, and the hem is reattached to give the jeans a worn-in look.)
For the first semester of its program, which concluded in December, FIT received more than 190 applications for 15 spots. The nine-week course requires prior sewing experience. Nordstrom hired seven students from the inaugural class.
“It’s increasingly becoming more challenging to find people to fill these alterations jobs,” said Marco Esquivel , the director of alterations and aftercare services at Nordstrom, which employs about 1,500 tailors. Similar to other high-end retailers, Nordstrom offers free basic tailoring for garments purchased at the department-store chain and charges a fee for those bought elsewhere.
Tailored Brands, which employs about 1,300 tailors at its Men’s Wearhouse, Jos. A. Bank and other chains, is updating its apprenticeship program to include more self-guided videos with the goal of moving people through the training faster.
“The pipeline has dwindled,” the company’s chief operating officer, Karla Gray , said.
While counterintuitive, there is an acute need for tailoring even in the current age of casual dressing. Pants and cuffs still need to be hemmed to say nothing of bridal, prom and other special-occasion clothes.
Decades of offshoring affected the American apparel industry, decimating the profession. Now most tailors who are working are starting to approach retirement age, so demand for them outstrips the supply of labor, industry executives say.
Other colliding factors have had an impact, too. As more women took traditional corporate jobs outside the home, schools eliminated home-economics programs, which were a steppingstone to becoming a professional tailor or seamstress. More recently, the explosion in popularity for resale clothing and the growing use of GLP-1 drugs for weight loss have created more need for nipping and tucking what is in peoples’ closets.
“These are all trends that require more tailored clothing,” Nordstrom’s Esquivel said.
U.S. tailors numbered about 18,500 in 2024, a nearly 30% drop from a decade ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 1997, there were almost twice as many. Federal data show the typical annual wage for a dressmaker is about $43,000 a year, but some tailors and seamstresses can make more.
Jenny Robbins, 61 years old, recently joined Nordstrom after completing the Fashion Institute’s program. It is her latest reinvention after starting her career as a math teacher, working as a tutor for Princeton Review and then becoming a pattern maker for designer Anna Sui after taking a few sewing classes.
Robbins says she learned to operate industrial sewing machines, which stitch much faster than home machines, create blind hems where the stitching is essentially invisible, and can cuff a blazer.
“There is no shortage of work,” she said.
The lack of tailors and sewers has also been a blow to reviving apparel manufacturing in the U.S.
Cindie Husbands opened an apparel manufacturer in Las Vegas in 2013 but closed it in 2021 partly due to a lack of trained sewers, she said.
Husbands then opened an alterations and dress shop in Kokomo, Ind. One day, a customer walked in looking for a prom dress for her daughter. The woman, Melinda Lange , got to chatting with Husbands and shared that the pest-control company where she worked as a scheduler had replaced her with an artificial intelligence system.
Husbands hired Lange and trained her as a seamstress. Now, Lange is preparing to open her own alterations shop.
“There seems to be a real need for it,” says Lange, 49. “I feel like it will be more stable than the jobs I had before.”
In November, Husbands founded the American Tailors and Sewing Association, which aims to create a standardized, scalable training and certification model for the industry.
“Tailoring is one of the oldest skilled trades in the world,” she said. “Yet the pathway has almost vanished in a single generation.”
