Inside Ford Motor Co. and workwear company Carhartt there is a growing sense of urgency over the feeling the country is close to a crisis when it comes to filling the pipeline for skilled trades jobs.
For both companies, a dearth in skilled trades workers stings because those are the people who wear Carhartt’s clothes and buy Ford’s commercial trucks.
So in January, Ford and Carhartt formed an alliance to find ways to encourage young people to consider a career in skilled trades and get the tools and training to pursue it. The partnership includes plans to attract new workers through incentives such as Ford and Carhartt branded clothing, a special Carhartt Super Duty pickup launching next year and investing in a Detroit-based ToolBank USA location.
Both companies also have invested money in training programs and scholarships to pique the interest of younger people in a career in the trades.
Now, the companies say they need partners to help them accelerate the solution to an impending shortage of people to work in the “essential economy” — those people who work in manufacturing, utilities, transportation, construction and energy industries.
“We’re welcoming any other business that wants to come in and help us do this because we feel like this is a national crisis,” Linda Hubbard, CEO of Carhartt, told the Detroit Free Press on May 6. “It’s about everyone getting involved. We’ll continue to look for like-minded organizations that are already set up to do this training, like community colleges, like some of the not-for-profits.”
Auto dealers struggle to hire service technicians
Last November, Ford CEO Jim Farley said the automaker had 5,000 job openings across its U.S. dealership network for service technicians. Ford dealers struggle to fill these jobs, jobs that can pay up to $120,000 a year with the right training and experience, he said.
Dealer Thad Szott told the Detroit Free Press that the service technician shortage stretches across all five of his Michigan stores and he currently has openings for 10 to 15 mechanics for service and the collision shop. Szott is a dealer partner in Szott Auto Group that owns: Szott Ford in Holly, Szott Jeep in White Lake, Szott M-59 Jeep in White Lake, Szott M-59 Chysler Dodge Ram in Highland, Szott I-96 Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in New Hudson and Szott M-59 Toyota in Waterford.
Szott said his dealership works with the national, state and local dealership associations to partner with various schools that cater to skilled trades. In some cases that even includes high schools. It’s all an effort to attract people to the profession.
“It’s moving the needle, but it’s not moving as fast as we need,” Szott said. “We just have to keep at it and raising awareness that there’s an opportunity for young people and you can make a lot of money. There are different levels of technicians. The higher you climb in certifications, the more you make. You can get into six figures pretty quick in this industry.”
In Dearborn, Village Ford owner Jim Seavitt told the Detroit Free Press he also needs to hire about 10 service technicians. Because it is so hard to attract them from the outside, he tries to grow his own in house. He hires them in as entry-level porters, then gradually gives them the training and experience to get certified to do increasingly more complex mechanical jobs. Even though cars have more computers on them these days, they still require “wrenching,” he said.
“They’re still wrenching on most cars, on electric not so much, but the hard part is wrenching … fixing transmission and fixing engines. It’s not easy work,” Seavitt said. “But we pay. We start at $18 an hour and up to $30 an hour, or even $60 an hour to do transmissions and engines.”
Why the skilled trades shortage is getting worse
Farley has done his part to draw awareness to the crisis facing the essential economy. Last September, Farley organized a workforce development conference at Michigan Central Station in Detroit. There, Farley brought industry leaders and policymakers together to address the trades crisis. He even talked publicly to Mike Rowe, host of the TV show “Dirty Jobs,” about his own son contemplating a career as a mechanic.
But the demand for service technicians and other skilled trades people has not leveled off and the struggle to fill it remains high.
“We’ve said that there’s thousands of these jobs that are available, and we don’t have candidates, and we believe that that problem, as Jim Farley has talked about, is going to continue to get worse if we don’t do something about it,” Alicia Boler Davis, president of Ford Pro, told the Detroit Free Press. Ford Pro is Ford’s commercial vehicle division.
The data supports those concerns. According to the National Association of Manufacturer’s first-quarter survey, about 45% of U.S. manufacturers list attracting and retaining workers is a “primary” challenge. Similarly, an article published in 2023 by the U.S. Census Bureau said a study by the Manufacturing Institute projected there will be 2.1 million unfilled manufacturing jobs by 2030, resulting from a lack of skilled labor.
How Ford and Carhartt are funding trades training
Since 2023, Ford and Ford dealers have collectively invested $11 million to support 2,200 students across 46 states in scholarships to study a skilled trade, said Ford spokeswoman Elizabeth Kraft in a text message to the Detroit Free Press. In southeast Michigan, about 80 students have received such scholarships, she said.
Also, Kraft said, Ford Philanthropy and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation have funded 13 Ford Future Builders Labs in K-12 schools across Detroit, Marshall and Battle Creek. Those are high-tech fabrication centers that allow kids to learn the skills of the future. Ford said it has equipped 8,800 K-12 students with high-tech skills.
Similarly, Carhartt has helped fund the National Center for Construction Education and Research, a nonprofit that provides construction education and technical education programs. Hubbard said Carhartt has also funded 15 high school programs directed at trades nationally and plans to add another 10 over high school programs to its funding over the next few months.
But both Hubbard and Boler Davis said they are “very open” to more partners in the endeavor to fill the skilled trades pipeline.
“This is one in every three jobs in America and these are really good paying jobs,” Boler Davis told the Free Press. “If we don’t have young people or people willing to come into these roles, we’re going to have a huge shortage and these are the jobs that are really fueling our economy. So this is a really, really important issue. It’s just not an issue for Ford. It’s an issue for our country.”
Jamie L. LaReau is the senior autos writer for USA TODAY Co. who covers Ford Motor Co. for the Detroit Free Press. Contact Jamie at jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. To sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ford, Carhartt push skilled trades as some 6-figure jobs go unfilled
Reporting by Jamie L. LaReau, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
