Ford CEO Jim Farley laments he can’t fill 5,000 mechanic jobs paying $120K per year: ‘We are in trou

[mystery-ak]

 Ford CEO Jim Farley laments he can’t fill 5,000 mechanic jobs paying $120K per year: ‘We are in trouble in our country’
By Ariel Zilber   
Published Nov. 14, 2025, 5:18 p.m. ET

Ford has been unable to fill some 5,000 openings for mechanics despite offering a salary of $120,000 a year — prompting the company’s chief executive to warn of a dire shortage of skilled tradespeople in the US.

“We are in trouble in our country. We are not talking about this enough,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said on an episode of the “Office Hours: Business Edition” podcast published earlier this week.

“We have over a million openings in critical jobs, emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians and tradesmen.”

Farley added: “It’s a very serious thing.”

The $120,000 pay is nearly twice the average annual American salary, according to the Social Security Administration.

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https://nypost.com/2025/11/14/business/ford-ceo-jim-farley-says-he-cant-fill-5000-mechanic-jobs-paying-120k-per-year-we-are-in-trouble-in-our-country/

[Kamaji]

Trade school is absolutely a legitimate career path starter these days.

[Bigun]

Trade school is absolutely a legitimate career path starter these days.

  Always has been really.

[Free Vulcan]

Doesn't matter how much you pay some people, they aren't going to do physical labor. They are above that, and don't bow down to sully themselves with such things.

We have become a prideful nation more concerned about social status and what others think than having a good wage and an honest profession.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Aren't there some junior mechanics or something they could train?

[DB]

Much of the gaming generation doesn't know how to do much of anything other than game. They also think they're knowledgeable because they can look stuff up on the internet but have zero practical experience using any of that information. In short childhoods burnt on gaming/internet and skipped the learning part. And now a good number of them think they are entitled to stuff other people earned. The country is in big trouble.

[Free Vulcan]

Much of the gaming generation doesn't know how to do much of anything other than game. They also think they're knowledgeable because they can look stuff up on the internet but have zero practical experience using any of that information. In short childhoods burnt on gaming/internet and skipped the learning part. And now a good number of them think they are entitled to stuff other people earned. The country is in big trouble.

Word. I've even read articles to this effect, that too many think because they stand by the fire and feel the heat that they built the fire.

I love the younger generation in many ways, but their cockiness will be their undoing. Passing knowledge that comes from the cheap seats at 30K feet going 1000 MPH is not knowledge.

Worst part is that people started sobering up after graduating high school. Now it's 40 years old.

[cato potatoe]

Down in the comment section you will learn why they can't fill the jobs.  If they paid what he claimed, they would get filled. 

[Kamaji]

Down in the comment section you will learn why they can't fill the jobs.  If they paid what he claimed, they would get filled. 

Why is that?

[Smokin Joe]

Aren't there some junior mechanics or something they could train?

There might be a few out there under shade trees.

But for the most part, current model vehicles are not something people can do much DIY with, unless they have access to the computer that works with the computer that tells you what's wrong. Gone are the days of building your own hot rod--nothing like the 50s and 60s. Vehicles have become ridiculously complex computer liked devices. There are between 30 and 100 computers in a modern car. In earlier ones, that number drops to zero as you go back past the '70s.

Still, I have met large numbers of people who don't know how to check their oil, transmission fluid, etc. and some suffer major malfunctions because of that (I teach who I can). It is amazing how many people will just throw up their hands and say it's all too complex and not even want to learn the basics.

The knowledge of auto mechanics I have came from necessity: I couldn't afford to pay someone else to do it, so I bought tools, books, and picked every knowledgeable person's brain I could to fix my own vehicles. Most of my knowledge stops at the year 2000 (some goes beyond that, because of legacy systems), just because that's when my newest vehicle was made.

[Texas Yellow Rose]