The Workforce Bottleneck in America’s Manufacturing Revival

The warning signs are everywhere. Ford CEO Jim Farley, recently said the company can’t fill five thousand mechanic jobs even at $120,000 per year.

“A bay with a lift and tools and no one to work in it — are you kidding me?” he said.

The automotive giant’s struggle is a snapshot of a broader industrial reality: as billions pour into U.S. factories and clean energy projects, the skilled labor simply isn’t there.

To explore this skilled trade gap more deeply, Area Development partnered with Lightcast, a big-data company that pioneered the collection and analysis of information on the labor market, and they helped provide a uniquely curated view of the skilled-trades pipeline — drawing on federal apprenticeship data, college completions, and employment projections — to reveal why workforce readiness has become the most important site selection variable in America.

Click here to read the original article from Area Development.