US ‘In Trouble’ – Ford CEO Can’t Find 5,000 Mechanics For $120k Jobs

Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley has sounded an alarm about the state of the US job market, saying Ford has been unable to fill 5,000 mechanic jobs paying $120,000 a year. Those $120,000 salaries are nearly double the US average. 

“We are in trouble in our country. We are not talking about this enough,” said Farley in an appearance last week on the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast. He said the shortage of qualified manual laborers isn’t confined to Ford, but is something businesses across the nation are struggling with. 

“We have over a million openings in critical jobs, emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians and tradesmen. It’s a very serious thing. We do not have trade schools. We are not investing in educating a next generation of people like my grandfather who had nothing, who built a middle class life and a future for his family.

Those jobs are out there. Mechanics in a Ford dealership — as of this morning, we had 5,000 openings. A bay with a lift and tools and no one working in it. $120,000-a-year job, but it takes you five years to learn it. To take a diesel out of a Super Duty, it takes a lot of skill. You need to know what you’re doing.” 

Rich Garrity, a National Association of Manufacturers board member, expanded on Farley’s lament about the country’s deficit in training programs, telling the New York Post:  

“We’re not just missing bodies, but we’re really missing … skill sets that can connect to 21st-century manufacturing needs. The community colleges, the career tech programs do a solid job in providing foundational training, but we often see that they’re out of date when it comes to keeping up with how fast things are moving from a technology standpoint.” 

Social media is awash in testimonials from young college grads bemoaning their inability to find jobs. Meanwhile, in August, BLS reported that America had over 400,000 available manufacturing jobs. There’s an obvious disconnect, but, on a bright note, the long-running over-emphasis on college education may finally be waning. Trade school enrollment soared 16% in 2024, while college enrollment growth has been negligible in recent years.  

This is grunt work. It is beneath you. You should be talking out $200k in students loans and then getting a teller job at a bank paying $16hr. That is dignity. https://t.co/nf1k88G6Bl

— B (@B__Daily) November 15, 2025

“For many years in the US, it was, you go to a four-year college and things are set up for you,” Farley said. “And the reality is, that path is not necessarily what it used to be. A more valuable path, in many cases, is getting a technical college or apprenticeship and starting to learn certain skills very early on.”