Ford CEO Jim Farley says his company’s inability to hire mechanics is a warning sign about the future of skilled work. 

On an episode of the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast, Farley noted that Ford has around 5,000 open mechanic positions that it cannot fill, despite offering pay that can reach $120,000 a year for these roles. In comparison, the national average salary is $62,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Farley argued that even though manual labor and skilled-trade jobs offer strong wages, there is a widespread shortage of workers able to take on these roles. He called the situation a national problem rather than just a Ford issue, pointing out that the unfilled openings at Ford are part of a much larger gap across the U.S. economy. 

“We are in trouble in our country, and we are not talking about this enough,” Farley said on the podcast. “We have over a million openings in critical jobs, emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians and tradesmen. It’s a very serious thing.”

The numbers back up the CEO’s concern. According to the National Association of Manufacturers, there were 403,000 manufacturing jobs open in November and nearly 13 million workers in the industry in December. A 2024 study from the Manufacturing Institute and consulting firm Deloitte found that more than half of 200 surveyed manufacturing firms cited recruiting and retaining workers as their top challenge. 

Meanwhile, other blue-collar jobs face a critical shortage of skilled workers. According to Forbes, in 2025, the U.S. already had a deficit of about 80,000 electricians. The publication noted that by 2030, the gap could increase to up to 224,000 unfilled jobs. The U.S. is also expected to be short 550,000 plumbers by 2027, per Bloomberg. 

On the podcast, Farley framed blue-collar work as central to America’s economic story and to his own family history. He noted that mechanic jobs like the ones Ford is trying to fill allowed workers such as his grandfather, who worked on the company’s Model T car and was one of Ford’s earliest employees, to build solid, “middle-class” lives. 

Ford has been working to make its roles more attractive with higher pay. The company eliminated the lowest tier of its wage scale and agreed to give employees a 25% pay increase over four years in its 2023 deal with the United Auto Workers union. According to Payscale, the average base salary at Ford is $101,000 a year. 

However, Farley has conceded that pay alone isn’t enough to solve the problem. He sees the root issue as a lack of training and a neglected pipeline for skilled trades. 

“We are not investing in educating a next generation of people,” he said on the podcast. 

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