Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley has issued one of his starkest warnings yet about America’s labour future, revealing that the company is struggling to fill 5,000 skilled-mechanic roles despite offering salaries of around $120,000. Calling it a “serious problem” for the country, Farley said the shortage of trained workers is no longer an industry issue. It is a national crisis that threatens manufacturing, emergency services and the trades that keep the US economy functioning.
Ford CEO highlights widening gap between open jobs and available talent
Farley shared the figures during an appearance on the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast, saying Ford is not alone in the struggle. Across the US, more than one million skilled-trade and manual-labour positions remain vacant, including jobs in emergency response, trucking, plumbing, electrical work, manufacturing and factory operations.“We are in trouble in our country,” Farley warned, pointing out that many of these jobs form the backbone of American industry. Despite competitive pay, including six-figure packages at Ford, the talent pipeline simply is not keeping up with demand.Recent federal data backs him up. As of August, more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs were open nationwide, even with unemployment rising to 4.3 percent. This is a sign that the labour gap is driven not by job scarcity but by a dramatic decline in the supply of trained workers.
The fallout of shrinking trade education
One of the biggest problems, Farley argues, is the collapse of trade-based education and apprenticeships. He highlighted that becoming a top-tier mechanic or technician, for example someone who can remove a diesel engine from a Ford Super Duty truck, requires years of training and hands-on experience.“We do not have trade schools,” Farley said, criticising decades of underinvestment in vocational education. “We are not educating the next generation of people like my grandfather, who built a middle-class life.”His reference is personal. Farley’s own grandfather was employee No. 389 at Ford and worked on the Model T, a reminder of how factory and trade work once propelled millions into stable livelihoods.
What companies like Ford are doing to retain workers
Farley noted that Ford has already taken major steps to make its jobs more appealing. The company eliminated the lowest tier in its wage structure and agreed to a 25 percent pay increase over four years as part of its contract with the United Auto Workers in 2023.Yet even with improved pay and benefits, skilled-trade positions remain among the hardest in America to fill, a sign, Farley says, that the issue is structural, not simply financial.
A generational shift and one silver lining
Interestingly, Farley suggested younger Americans may be key to solving the crisis. After years of declining interest in trade jobs, Gen Z is now pushing back against the traditional college-only pathway, with trade-school enrolment rising 16 percent last year, the highest since tracking began in 2018.The surge reflects growing frustration with student debt and a renewed awareness that skilled jobs can offer stability, mobility and strong salaries, often without a four-year degree.But while this trend is encouraging, Farley cautioned that it may not be enough to close the labour gap quickly. Skilled trades require long training curves, and decades of underinvestment mean it will take years to rebuild the pipeline.Farley’s warning is blunt. Without rapid reinvestment in training, apprenticeships and vocational pathways, the US risks choking its own economic engine. From repairing vehicles and maintaining infrastructure to keeping factories running, the trades remain essential and the shortage is becoming too large to ignore.
