We as a nation have done a poor job of informing and educating our youth to set them up for success in the labor force:
Ford CEO says ‘America’s in trouble’ after offering $120,000 a year yet no American wants the job
Ford CEO Jim Farley didn’t mince words when he appeared on the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast. “We are in trouble in our country,” he said plainly. “We are not talking about this enough,” Farley argued that a quiet but serious skilled labor shortage is threatening American industry and that most people haven’t noticed yet.
At the time of the podcast, Ford had roughly 5,000 open mechanic positions, each paying up to $120,000 a year. That’s nearly double the average U.S. salary of $66,622. Yet Farley says dealership bays sit idle — equipped with lifts, stocked with tools, and no one to fill them. The money is there. The workers, he says, are not.
Farley was quick to say Ford is just one piece of a much larger picture. He estimated over a million unfilled openings in what he called “critical jobs,” among them emergency services, trucking, factory work, plumbing, and electrical trades. “It’s a very serious thing,” he said. The automotive sector is simply the most visible example of a nationwide pattern.
The numbers behind the trend are stark. Forbes estimates more than 345,000 new skilled trade jobs will open in the U.S. before 2028. For every five trained workers who retire, only two step in to replace them. And unlike white-collar roles, these trades are largely insulated from AI displacement. Robots can’t replace a transmission or rewire a breaker box.
I suppose the saving grace in all this is that hopefully our youth do graduate will the critical thinking skills to navigate all things LGBTQ+ and CRT.![]()