The Covid-19 pandemic prompted a wave of early retirements and career-switching, while slowing training. And amid historically low US unemployment, industry wages have had trouble competing.
Still, naval shipbuilding contributes, directly or indirectly, more than $40 billion to the country's GDP.
The industry continues to build "lots of ships," mainly for the domestic market, said Paxton, while adding that Trump probably wants a much larger US share of the global market.
US shipyards not only produce and maintain ships for governmental bodies -- from the US Navy to agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) -- they also produce and maintain the roughly 40,000 commercial vessels.