Ford can't find mechanics for $120K: It takes math to learn a trade

I worked at a company that actually paid well for a tech support team of about (roughly) 20 - 40 people at any given time covering a 24/7 schedule 365 days a year.

Over the course of TWENTY years the core group all stayed together. It was no mystery how, good training (that we did ourselves), good pay to start, good benefits, flexible / respectful management. It wasn't even 6 figures, but they were good jobs that made it hard for most everyone to leave, in a good way.

But all good things come to an end, tech support, I suspect like all "maintenance" roles they are eventually are seen as a cost and quality management starts to fade ... and everything falls apart. Management will bemoan not being able to find good people, while doing nothing to help make them good or treat them well.

I wonder how many leaders understand that it is their job to MAKE A GOOD TEAM and that it is their job to keep it that way, as opposed to expect people to just show up and do it for them?

The rest is atmospherics.

(The US has, in general, taken a similar attitude towards public education, while simultaneously making it responsible for "everything" regarding children's upbringing. Compounding the problem.)

Example: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd....

https://senate.ucsd.edu/media/740347/sawg-report-on-admissio...

Then of course, why would you specialize in the F150 if they add new electronic BS every 2 years, the car will perhaps be obsolete in 7 years or all tariffs on BYD are lifted in 8 years.

Maybe keep cars general and don't make them proprietary, then people will learn general skills.

Ford CEO says he has 5k open mechanic jobs with 6-figure salaries

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45920570

Pay them more. 120k is like 60k in mid 1990s money.

And, pay for their education. Invest in local colleges to help guide curriculum in what you need. That’s what defense contractors and mega corps do / have done.

Stop complaining and be stewards of your community. Like Henry Ford argued back in the day, “I want my employees to be able to buy a Ford”. Invest and the people will invest back.

Who, exactly, is this "we"? Capitalists talk up The Market, but are unwilling to pay market-driven wages and salaries, and expect others, usually the government, to foot the bill for training their skilled workers.

It would also help if Ford and other vehicle manufacturers put some thought into incorporating maintainability into their designs. Their newest offerings are a hot mess in this respect.

And no mechanic I’ve ever met makes 120k.

I'm sure I've previously heard it implied that all the grooms who lost their jobs to motor cars became mechanics and chauffeurs. Surely this would be just too poetic.

They haven’t changed one bit.

They’re lying about how much they’re paying people. That’s a maximum you can earn working 70 hours per week, not the base.

I am completely unsurprised they can’t find anybody to work for them.

“The Ford CEO's grandfather was one of the company's early employees, hired to work on the Model T.”

Yeah, and one of my grandfathers was a cop and the other a foreman on a jewelry shop floor. Both of which have as much to do with my coding career as the square root of sweet Fanny Adams. My dad put himself through college by working in a garage. I will admit the math in the 50s or so was more rigorous than what I had in the 80s, but the idea anyone interested in working on cars can’t be taught from almost scratch seems like a strong take. Whether you paid attention in pre-algebra or not is going to have little to do with your ability to balance four tires as a system or clean a carb or set engine timing via a computer.

If the auto mechanics were paid a salary of $120K per year for 40 hours per week, they'd be flooded with applicants.

Instead, that $120K number is if you can work the requisite number of overtime hours and you don't pay attention to having to buy your own tools and ...

Pay is too low for entry level people, at maybe $14 an hour. That’s before the Snap-on Truck comes by and saddles that tech with $40k of debt.

Give entry level workers a living wage, and give them tools to use (and keep after investing 3 years in the business). Have an actual pipeline for certification and training and remove the gate keeping of many dealers that prevent good techs from becoming better mechanics. Do better at engineering vehicles so they are easier to work on.

As this CEO knows, doing the right thing is harder than complaining.

Ah yes, insults. The Best hiring method.

>We are not investing in educating a next generation

It is people like you who caused this with chasing short term profits and paying off US Congress people and presidents to cut your taxes.

Education needs to be paid for by someone. Tax cuts for the wealthy and paying minimum wage to most workers caused this, look in the mirror.

Let me dissect this article with uncompromising scrutiny:

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

Maybe because for 30 years America sold the idea that you need a bachelors degree to do the majority of these jobs, while simultaneously implying that you only needed 2 years of vocational school? A lot of these require extensive apprenticeships and experience (576 classroom hours, 8,000 experience hours, passing exams for a journeyman electrician license in Oregon). It's absolutely not "Go to school for 2 years and get paid $120k."

Furthermore, most of the trades are brutal on your body, mind, and lifestyle.

> "we don't have trade schools anymore"

We do, and we do our best to train students on only the absolute necessary skills that get them the job and working as quickly as possible. Corporations stopped meaningfully supporting them while simultaneously raising expectations. Major companies stopped most training and orientation programs or significantly scaled them back, passed the burden of training onto community colleges and trade schools, and now complain that our tools and techniques are out of date.

Ford does at my college this while keeping their name slapped on the auto mechanic's program because they helped start the program 20 years ago. Now they're upset because they're not getting the same returns while my fellow instructors struggle to teach on supplies that are 2 decades old.

> "What we don't have are enough young people with the literacy and math proficiency needed to learn skilled trades."

A lot of the K-12 complaint is the No Child Left Behind act and the effects of Common Core. Lots of throwing up of hands here saying "Well guess there's nothing we can do. We have all these high paying jobs that no one wants"

Wanna fix this? Eliminate No Child Left Behind. Actually invest in teachers, tutors, and the people making the impact. Stop calling teachers 'heroes', and give us the resources to actually instruct kids. Stop assuming a household with 2-3 kids, 2 parents that work full time (overtime in today's America), are barely making ends meet, and have no extended family to help kids with homework or tutor, are going to somehow do extremely well.

In fact, we have loads of papers that demonstrate that math scores and grades are pretty tightly correlated with parents'/family ability and availability to help kids with homework. Maybe have parents work less so they can tutor their kids more?

> "Workers who struggle to read grade-level text cannot read complicated technical manuals or diagnostic instructions."

They don't have trouble reading grade-level text. This is a complete misunderstanding of what those tests evaluate. More importantly: If they're struggling to read those complicated manuals or diagnostic instructions, maybe it's because most manufacturers eliminated a lot of the repairability of cars in the past few decades and scaled back their service manuals? Maybe invest in technical writing again?

> They were passed on with inflated grades

Because you stopped hiring anyone with less than a 3.0-4.0. If a teacher's job is to get a student a job in the trades, you won't hire them because their GPA is poor, and we get fired if too many students fail, guess what we (instructors) are going to do?

> "If they can’t handle middle-school math they can’t program high-tech machines or robotics, or operate the automated equipment found in modern factories and repair shops."

Also not correct, and a gross misinterpretation of what the national exams show. Most students can do most math with a calculator just fine, mental math not so much, but it's rare to be in a shop without some kind of computer or calculator nowadays. If you want people who have completed a 2 year trade program to be able to competently do calculus, robotics, PLCs, and program, you need to admit that the job requires far beyond 'middle-school math'.

> ""Servicing an electric vehicle requires interpreting data flows, troubleshooting electronics, and following precise, multistep instructions." It's not a job for "grease monkeys."

Here is the crux of the problem. All of these are needs that are way beyond a standard mechanical technician's toolkit. You need them to dual train as electrical engineers and mechanical engineers with notable expertise in 12/24v and rather high voltages for EVs. You don't want 'average technicians' for 120k, you want dual-degree mechanical and electrical engineers to work for you for less than their going market rate. If your toolchain requires more than an understanding of ODB2 (or 1-2 device) readings and a solid understanding of vehicular operations and what commonly breaks, then you've spent too much time making your products unrepairable and obtuse.