Mike Rowe: Low labor participation paired with high unemployment a 'matter of national security'

Fox Business host Mike Rowe joined "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Thursday to discuss the labor shortage in the United States and the lack of skilled labor.

"This is no longer a matter of a skills gap or a few million people unemployed and employers frustrated because of the mismatching skills," said Rowe, who often advocates for Americans to pursue jobs in the trades, where there has long been a shortage, "This is a matter of national security."

"When I started that foundation MikeRoweWORKS, 13 years ago on Labor Day, we had record-high unemployment. Every morning I woke up. I was shooting ‘Dirty Jobs’ and I would look at the headlines in the paper and it was always a click up. 8%, 8.5%, 9%."

"Everywhere we went on ‘Dirty Jobs’ we saw help-wanted signs. It became obvious something else was happening in the country... Thirteen years ago and there were 2.3 million open positions. Today it’s 11 million."