Interesting. Here in the US, those were regarded as stable, well-paying jobs for people without a college degree. They were seen as a middle-class income that could support a family and a house, accessible to just about anybody (at a time when college was relatively rare). They weren't fun jobs, but seen as good solid labor for sound pay.

There are a whole lot of problems with those rose-colored glasses (including that it owed a lot to unions, which are often despised in the US), but I'm curious why Europeans don't even want the rose-colored-glasses version. Are they seen as unpleasant jobs? Or unstable?