Ford’s CEO Jim Farley thinks America needs a wake-up call.
Speaking on the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast, Farley said Ford had 5,000 open mechanic positions that it hasn’t been able to fill, despite the possibility of an eye-popping $120,000 salary—nearly double the American worker’s median salary.
And it’s not just Ford, added Farley. The carmaker’s struggle to fill jobs that require training and manual labor are indicative of a general shortage for manual-labor jobs in the U.S., he added.
“We are in trouble in our country. We are not talking about this enough,” Farley told host Monica Langley. “We have over a million openings in critical jobs, emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians, and tradesmen. It’s a very serious thing.”
While President Donald Trump has centered his economic agenda on bringing manufacturing back to the U.S., there remains a gap between the number of factory jobs open and the number of people willing to fill them.
