I thought animation was a craft/ blue collar?

It can still have those things, with with the numbers of film/animation schools around, why would apprenticeships remain in large numbers? Who has the time to extensively mentor new talent, when viable talent emerges from those schools all the time and can be put to work with minimal hands-on guidance (usually)?
Often, the ones getting apprenticeships are the ones with talent already at a level that they'd be hired by a studio regardless.

These days, one can go to school to get the basics needed to do the craft of animation, and if they have talent they can parley that into a entry-level position at an animation studio.
In days past, all one needed was drawing talent that approached near-professional levels and then one could (eventually) find a pro that would take them under their wing and mentor them to professional levels.
The internet makes a great deal of information on how to do this stuff readily available, examples of what professional work looks like is equally available, the tools to do this stuff are, again, also readily available ( and relatively cheap, still).

Logically, animation should be relatively easy to get into..........but its not.

The reason comes down to talent. The aspiring artist either has it, can develop it, or not.
And when I say talent, I mean that they can create an appealing image that follows the fundamentals of art and design.
That is what is called for as a professional artist, distilled down to simplicity.

But a considerable number of aspiring talents DON'T KNOW what an appealing image is, nor can they negotiate the drawing of one.
Figuring this out is a big part of what people are talking about when they say the aspiring talents need to "come halfway".

And yet, really......this should not be hard.

The examples of what is appealing, what is professional level art is right there in front of everyone: its the examples that get shown on TV, in movies, games, comics, ads etc. That's the work that artists are getting paid for........all one has to do is make their work like that.
That's the template, really.

There are still groups and clubs and such with a co-op kind of philosophy about them, and they can sometimes offer training/guidance on the craft. One just has to seek them out. Larger centres are more likely to have them, and more likely to have professionals as members.
Failing that, one can always do what's been done for decades.....seek out a professional animator/cartoonist, approach them, prove to them that one is driven and committed to the craft and ASK if they could provide some mentoring.
They might say no, but they also might say yes.

Oh, one last thing......not a correction but some information to take as you will.
Some years ago, Reader Digest ran an article about the classifications for different colour-collared jobs.

They had Pink-collar, Blue-collar, White-collar, Silver-collar, Gold-collar, and Platinum-collar jobs all categorized.

Pink-collar jobs were entry-level secretarial/clerical.
Blue-collar were labour jobs.
White-collar were managerial jobs.
Gold-collar were mid-level business owners, CEOs, most actors/celebrities.
Platinum-collar jobs were top-level CEO's Michael Jackson, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet etc....

And, no I did not miss one.......Silver-collared jobs were doctors, astronauts, air-line pilots........and animators.
See, the technical know-how, plus intuition and hand-skills puts animators/cartoonist in the same category "skill-wise" as astronauts or doctors because we are not just using technical skills, we use a great deal of judgement calls and observation from the world around us. So with that in mind, its clearly not an easy endeavour....

I think the animation is fulled with challenge and pleasure .because every successful works contain stylist more effort.