Mechanical timepieces are a luxury item, and these students are essentially artists in training. Wrist time was solved in the late 1970's with the commoditization of quartz movements. These 'jobs' will get replaced by AI at approximately the same pace as your local sculptor.

I don't know how high paying it is, although I can see how it can be, especially given there is a shortage of watchmakers in the developed world, even in Switzerland.

I am literally wearing a watch right now that was produced without any of these artisans’ specialized labor and which boasts among its features access to AI.

In a very real sense I have replaced use of the skills of watchmakers with AI.

Sorry about that. To be fair most watchmakers were already put out of work by quartz oscillators and integrated circuits in the 1980s.

I have a friend who got an English and Creative Writing degree from a liberal arts college, and then immediately went back to trade school for band instrument repair. It's not particularly lucrative, as trades go, but it does seem a lot more future proof than most careers.

Sure but it’s also a microscopically small component of the country’s overall economy.

Unless they’re replaced by humans controlled by AI(look at the various research for BCIs or for gene therapy that allows for the possibility for you to be controlled by radio frequencies), then they’re very easily replaced.

Basically anything that is a luxury good is probably safe from AI. If people are buying it for status or high performance reasons, they aren’t going to pick the low end AI slop version.