The editors of the Wall Street Journal give their opinion on why Ford can’t find mechanics:
Corporate CEOs are keeping their heads down these days, lest they get chopped off by the Trump Administration. So last week’s remarks by Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley deserve credit for candor, as well as for the public service of telling politicians a hard truth about the American labor force.
Mr. Farley told a podcast last week that he can’t find enough skilled mechanics to run his auto plants. Specifically, Ford can’t fill 5,000 mechanic jobs that pay $120,000 a year.
“We are in trouble in our country. We are not talking about this enough,” Mr. Farley said. “We have over a million openings in critical jobs, emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians and tradesmen.” He said Ford is struggling to hire mechanics at salaries that Ivy League grads might envy.
“A bay with a lift and tools and no one to work in it—are you kidding me? Nope,” Mr. Farley lamented. “We do not have trade schools” in this country. He’s right to a large degree. Few high schools teach trades these days. Community colleges are mostly remedial high school education, and government worker-training programs have poor results.
Government subsidies for college and graduate education have encouraged the young to go to college even though they might be better off learning a trade. This has created a skills mismatch in the labor market. Unemployment among young college grads is increasing, while employers struggle to hire skilled manufacturing workers, technicians and contractors.
I wish there were more in the way of details being offered. $120,000/year is twice the median wage and three times the median wage for automotive service technicians/mechanics. That sounds like a pretty good wage to me. Why is Ford having problems?
I also wonder whether the editors are making a pitch for vocational training, importing more workers with the required skills, or both? Or something else?
All I can add is that we’ve been propagandizing people for 30 years that they need to go to college and the public subsidies for doing that have been massive. Maybe it’s time to alter course. Like turning an ocean liner it’s not something you can do on a dime.
It’s far more than just the propaganda. The emphasis on core skills to graduate emphasize reading and math. Auto shop is then not a core course. Auto shop is expensive and takes up a lot of room so money was taken from there to spend on core stuff. Another overlooked area is that the liability lawyer industry bloomed so schools didnt want the liability.
Very much overlooked is that as we have become more prosperous few people actually work on their own cars anymore. When I was younger I changed oil myself and replaced belts, battery and other basic stuff when needed. I stopped that when I became more affluent. If kids dont see there parents do stuff they are much less likely to develop the skills and maybe more importantly the interest.
Anyway, in our area, the local schools banded together to form a vocational school. It does offer courses in auto related stuff, but they are, per one of the instructors, not especially popular. Finally, when I was young you didnt graduate high school having taken lots of auto shop and walk into an independent auto mechanic job. There was lots of on the job training. We know that in general companies have been investing less in employee training. Is that also true of Ford in this case?
Steve
As automobiles have become more computerized it has become increasingly difficult to work on one’s own car. That is by design.
But you do bring up a point that’s worth underscoring. I wonder what Ford is looking for? If they’re looking for individuals under 30 with 20 years of professional experience working on cars, it’s no wonder they’re having difficulty finding the right people.
Ford’s claim is mostly bullshit. $120k is the upper end for an elite tech role in more expensive areas, for someone who probably works far more than 40 billable hours a week. It’s not typical.
The way compensation works in the industry is that it is a kind of piece-work system. Every job has a fixed billable “book time” for completion. You are paid based on the book time regardless of how long it takes you. And it’s quite common for dealers to have reduced book time for warranty work and other services (because manufacturers don’t reimburse dealers for the full cost of the work).
Reading the tech subreddits, a common theme is that techs get frustrated with this system and leave dealers to go work for an independent shop or a specialty commercial shop with better pay and what they think is fairer. So there is a lot of turnover among dealer techs. So a lot of the problem of Ford and its dealers with service techs is self-induced.
This is on top of the still-common industry practice of requiring techs to have their own tools. It’s a way for dealers and shops to offload capital costs onto employees, and can cost thousands to tens-of-thousands.
Thank you, Andy. That clarification was very helpful.
If it wasn’t clear I was skeptical of Mr. Farley’s claim or, perhaps, thought it might be circular. Sounds like that was the right call.