In a digital age, old-fashioned watchmaking schools, including a new one from Rolex, are in demand – Baltimore Sun

By Daniel Miller, Los Angeles Times

Ever since watches began bringing order to the ephemeral passage of time, they also started doing something else: breaking.

Own one long enough and something will probably go wrong. It’ll run slow. Or fast. Or stop altogether.

Decades ago, watch repair shops across the country were staffed with technicians who could service almost any mechanical timepiece when its intricate innards — tiny gears, wheels and springs — failed. But when the U.S. watchmaking industry declined in the mid-20th century, the number of craftspeople who could fix or fabricate timepieces began dwindling too.

There were 1,880 U.S. watch and clock repairers in 2023, down from 2,430 just three years earlier, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That 23%