To the old-fashioned watchmaker, quartz seemed like kryptonite.

In 1969, a Japanese outfit called Seiko began to sell the first mass-market watch that used the reliable little crystals for timekeeping. Cheap and metronomic, quartz watches flooded the market during the 1970s and ’80s, and it seemed like it might be the end of the mechanical-watch business. As the latter lost market share, so did the allure of watchmaking.

“No one wanted to go into watchmaking, because an entire industry was going to be gone,” says Joseph Panetta, spokesman for Swatch Group, which owns such luxury brands as Breguet, Blancpain, and Omega.

But fine watches, of course, didn’t disappear—even the nicest quartz-driven Seiko was never going to say “success” like a Patek Philippe—and lately, they have been resurgent. In 2005, a record $1.8 billion dollars’ worth of watches were imported into the U.S. from Switzerland, which produces 95 percent of the world’s high-end timepieces. That’s a jump of 15 percent over 2004, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, and the fastest growing segment of the market has been very high-end. (See "Big Swinging Ticks.")

Now the watchmaking industry faces a new challenge: the dwindling number of watchmakers qualified to make and service timepieces. In the 1940s and ’50s, there were as many as 40,000 watchmakers in this country, according to the American Watchmakers and Clockmakers Institute. Today, there are approximately 7,000.

“The average age of a watchmaker in the U.S. is about 60, and over the next few years, several thousand are going to retire,” says Maarten Pieters, director of the Watchmakers of Switzerland Training and Education Program (Wostep).

Another problem: Pay is nowhere near Silicon Valley standards. But in the context of the watchmaking industry, salaries have soared as a result of the shortage. Joe Juaire, watchmaking program director at Saint Paul College, says the median is about $50,000 countrywide, and notes a 100 percent salary increase over the past 10 years. “We’re seeing watchmakers earning wages equal to jewelry-store managers and owners in certain markets,” he says. “An advanced watchmaker can make more than $100,000.”

Hoping to alleviate the problem, the major watch manufacturers are setting up programs to train the next generation of master craftsmen. This summer, the Nicholas G. Hayek Watchmaking School, in Secaucus, New Jersey, set up by Swatch, will graduate its first class, of six students. Rolex’s Lititz Watch Technicum, in Lititz, Pennsylvania, will graduate 12 students. Both programs, like all those certified by Wostep, require 3,000 hours of training over two years, and classes fill a full 40 hours each week. Tuition is free, although many programs, including Hayek and Lititz, require students to purchase their own tools, which usually cost around $2,500. Graduates aren’t required to work for their benefactors following completion of the program, so they fan out into positions across the country.

The downside? The days are long and the work is painstaking. Watchmakers need impeccable hand-eye coordination, and sometimes work with parts so tiny that they can barely be seen with the naked eye.

“After about eight months of study, they’ll come into contact with their first watch, a pocket watch,” says Paul Madden, principal of the Swatch school. “And from there, the watches just get progressively smaller.”
 
“I was intimidated working on a smaller scale,” says first-year Hayek student Steven Mah, who had tinkered in carpentry and repair prior to matriculation. “It comes in time, though.”

Cartier is finalizing plans for its own school. And watch companies have been making significant contributions to existing programs around the country: Rolex gave $1 million to the watchmaking program at Saint Paul College in Minnesota and $2 million to the Watch Technology Institute at North Seattle Community College, while Oklahoma State University signed a $1.1 million agreement with an industry group (including Audemars Piguet, Breitling, Richemont, the Swatch Group, and Wostep) to expand its watchmaking program in 2006.

Even considering the investment in education that watch companies are making, attracting students continues to be a challenge: Schools typically have fewer than 100 applicants per year.

“In today’s world, we have computers—everyone wants to be a computer engineer. Watchmaking is a harder sell,” says James Lubic, president of the American Watchmakers and Clockmakers Institute.

Herman Mayer, principal of Lititz Watch Technicum, says jobs are there for the taking. “There’s no way someone graduates and can’t find a job,” he says. And Lubic can promise something that seemed totally implausible for a previous generation of watchmakers: job security. An industry that not too long ago seemed to be sputtering has turned into a growth sector, and Lubic doesn’t see that changing anytime soon. “In 10 years, we’ll have a thousand graduates,” he says. “And we’ll still need 1,500 or 2,000 more watchmakers in this country.”