Ford CEO has 5,000 open mechanic jobs with up to six-figure salaries due to a shortage of skilled manual workers: ‘We are in trouble in our country’

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Ford CEO Jim Farley believes America needs a wake-up call.

During an appearance on the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast, Farley said Ford has 5,000 unfilled mechanic positions it hasn’t been able to fill—even with the potential for a staggering $120,000 salary, nearly .

This isn’t just a Ford problem, Farley added. The automaker’s struggle to fill roles requiring training and manual labor reflects a broader shortage of hands-on jobs across the U.S., he noted.

“Our country is in trouble. We aren’t talking about this enough,” Farley told host Monica Langley. “We have over a million openings in critical fields: emergency services, trucking, factory work, plumbing, electrical work, and other trades. This is a very serious issue.”

While President Donald Trump has centered his economic agenda on , a gap remains between the number of open factory jobs and the people willing to take them.

As of November, there were 394,000 open manufacturing positions, according to preliminary Bureau of Labor Statistics data—despite a , which is higher than in previous years. A 2024 from the Manufacturing Institute and also found more than half of the 200 manufacturing firms surveyed cited recruiting and retaining workers as their top challenge.

Yet Farley emphasized that blue-collar jobs like those at Ford “built our country into what it is” and allowed people like his grandfather—who worked on the company’s flagship Model T and was employee 389—to build good lives.

Farley said Ford has improved its wage structure: it eliminated the lowest tier of its pay scale and agreed to a 25% salary increase over four years as part of its 2023 agreement with the United Auto Workers union.

Still, a lack of education and training is part of the manufacturing job shortage problem, Farley said. For example, he noted learning to remove a diesel engine from a Ford Super Duty truck takes at least five years—and the current system isn’t meeting that standard.

“We don’t have enough trade schools,” he said. “We aren’t investing in educating a next generation of people like my grandfather—who had nothing, but built a middle-class life and a future for his family.”

That said, younger people may be helping fill the manufacturing gap. Gen Z is increasingly moving away from the traditional college path to attend trade schools, aiming to avoid burdensome student loans while securing a well-paying job.

Vocational school enrollment jumped 16% in 2024, reaching its highest level since the National Student Clearinghouse began tracking data in 2018, previously reported. However, top jobs paying over $200,000 a year still , according to a study by job platform Ladders.

A version of this story was published on on Nov. 12, 2025.

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