Why People Aren't Lining Up for This $120,000 Job

**Ryan Knutson** (0:05)
There's a problem in the auto industry. There are not enough mechanics.
The CEO of Ford, Jim Farley, has been outspoken about it.

**Jim Farley** (0:16)
It's a very serious thing. We do not have trade schools, we are not investing in educating a next generation.

**Ryan Knutson** (0:24)
This is Farley on a podcast late last year.

**Jim Farley** (0:27)
Those jobs are out there, mechanics in a Ford dealership. As of this morning, we had 5,000 openings, a bay with a lift and tools and no one to work in it.

**Ryan Knutson** (0:39)
Farley says that after 5 years, a mechanic working at a Ford dealership will have enough experience to make $120,000 a year. Yet, for some reason, not enough people want to do it.
According to a trade group, there's an annual shortage of 37,000 mechanics across the industry. Here's our colleague Chris Otts.

**Christopher Otts** (1:02)
Farley's comment gave the impression, or at least some people interpreted it this way, that, wow, $120,000 jobs, and we just don't have enough people who went to trade school and know how to turn wrenches. What is wrong with our country? It's almost like this moralistic reaction.

**Jim Farley** (1:27)
With the government, with education, I think we can solve this, but we have a lot of work to do.

**Ryan Knutson** (1:39)
But our colleague Chris says that when you actually look at what the job entails.

**Christopher Otts** (1:42)
It is not hard to understand why there is a shortage of automotive technicians when you drill into it and understand what it takes to be able to do this job. So I really wanted to help people understand why this profession can be so lucrative, but how hard and tenuous it is to get there.

**Ryan Knutson** (2:11)
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knutson. It's Thursday, April 16th.
Coming up on the show, why people are not lining up for this $120,000 job.

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**Ryan Knutson** (3:13)
To give you a sense of the best-case scenario for a career as an auto mechanic, our colleague Chris went to a Ford dealership service center in Kent, Ohio.

**Christopher Otts** (3:22)
Showed up about 7 a.m., it was still kind of dark outside, kind of cold, and come in the shop, and it is an automotive repair shop. It's kind of dingy, it is well lit, and there's like maybe 7 bays on one side, 7 bays on the other.

**Ryan Knutson** (3:49)
Chris was there to interview a man named Ted Hummel. He's worked as a mechanic for almost two decades, and he's completed the highest level of training Ford offers. He's reached an official designation of Senior Master Technician.
Chris saw him in action.

**Ted Hummel** (4:05)
So these F-150s have a problem with harsh shifts, harsh engagement, harsh reverse.

**Christopher Otts** (4:10)
Gotcha.

**Ryan Knutson** (4:11)
Hummel makes good money. He takes home around $160,000 a year, in part from doing some big, difficult repairs.

**Ted Hummel** (4:19)
This one's kind of a special case. So I ordered a transmission for this.

**Christopher Otts** (4:25)
It needs a whole new transmission. Yeah.

**Ryan Knutson** (4:32)
The way mechanics get paid is a little funky.
It's something known as the flat rate system. With flat rate, each repair pays a preset number of hours based on how long the automaker or the dealership says the job should take. So for example, Hummel makes around $45 an hour. And the job he was working on that day, replacing the transmission of a Ford F-150, had a preset pay of about 10 hours.

**Christopher Otts** (5:00)
Do you have any idea how long this one's going to take you?

**Ted Hummel** (5:03)
I'll probably have it out for lunch.

**Christopher Otts** (5:07)
Well, that's like very, that's good, right?

**Ted Hummel** (5:10)
Yeah.

**Christopher Otts** (5:11)
If it pays 10, you get 10 hours, right?

**Ted Hummel** (5:14)
Okay.

**Christopher Otts** (5:14)
Regardless of how long it takes. Okay.
Ted is effectively going to get double his hourly rate, or almost, because he's doing a 10-hour job in five hours.

**Ted Hummel** (5:29)
I mean, when I've done so many of these, I haven't even opened the workshop manual. Like when you first do it, you got to walk back and forward, there have to be something on your toolbox, checking each step, so it takes a lot more time.