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, elec ...

Ford CEO highlights widening gap between open jobs and available talentFarley shared the figures during an appearance on the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast, saying Ford is not alone in the struggle. Across the US, more than one million skilled-trade and manual-labour positions remain vacant, including jobs in emergency response, trucking, plumbing, electrical work, manufacturing and factory operations.“We are in trouble in our country,” Farley warned, pointing out that many of these jobs form the ba ...

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 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 ...