Ford’s CEO Jim Farley thinks America needs a wake-up call.
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.”
Yet, Farley said blue-collar jobs, like those open at Ford, “made our country what it is,” and allowed people like his grandfather—who worked on the company’s flagship Model T and was employee 389 at the company—to have good lives.
Farley said the company is doing better on wages. It got rid of the lowest tier of its wage scale, and agreed to give workers a 25% salary bump over four years as part of its agreement with the United Auto Workers union in 2023.
Still, part of the problem for the shortage of manufacturing jobs is the lack of education and training, according to Farley. He noted, for example, learning to take a diesel engine out of a Ford Super Duty truck takes at least five years. The current system is not meeting the standard, he added.
“We do not have trade schools,” he said. “We are not investing in educating a next generation of people like my grandfather who had nothing, who built a middle class life and a future for his family.”
To be sure, younger people may be leading the charge on filling the gap in manufacturing positions. Gen Z is increasingly straying from the traditional college path and attending trade schools in an effort to avoid cumbersome student loans while also snagging a well paying job.
A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on Nov. 12, 2025.
