The CEO of Ford recently held a conference where he made remarks to his employees about a future with Ford. He revealed he had a personal “epiphany” about “essential economy.”
Most people I know that have an “epiphany” either found God, their soul mate, or came to a realization of something later in life they wish they knew. In the case of Farley, it was this half-baked nonsense below.
Speaking with Bloomberg’s David Westin at Michigan Central Station, Farley said he came to this realization during the United Auto Workers strike of 2023, when he was especially struck by stories from young factory employees. Many of them said they could not support themselves by working at Ford alone. “When I met with my entry factory workers, they were saying [they] had to have three jobs.” He said they would also work at places like Walmart and an Amazon fulfillment center: “‘You know, I get six hours of sleep, and I got three jobs.’”
This would be a surprise to no one who is a millennial and below, but to those like Farley and the older generations, it’s a foreign concept. Working multiple jobs just to eke out a living is very common now, it shouldn’t have to be this way. Its neither a Democrat or Republican issue, it’s a bipartisan one.
To further enhance my point about Farley’s generation, check out this verbal diarrhea.
In the short term, Farley said, Ford’s signature element in its new labor agreement was to get full wages to entry-level workers. But beyond that, he began looking at the labor shortage in trade work, starting with technicians. Farley described a revelation about the erosion of what blue-collar work used to represent—stability, pride, and a single income that could support a family.
A signature element! There you have it folks, he wants full wages to entry level workers! My goodness, stop the presses. He now cares about the labor shortage for trade jobs? Interesting, I’ll address this a little later.
Farley was blunt about the nationwide labor shortage. He estimated the U.S. is short roughly 400,000 technicians and a similar number of factory workers, repeating talking points he has been citing in his push on the essential economy. He warned that millions of well-paid jobs are going unfilled because they require specialized skills. Putting the salaries for these jobs at $100,000 and above, Farley argued that they require training. “You can’t work on a diesel F-150 if you haven’t been trained for five years, at a minimum five years,” Farley noted. It’s not a demand problem—there’s plenty of work—but a dire shortage of young people choosing and staying in the trades.
More verbal diarrhea. This Farley dude must have the worst breath in history. Those jobs start at 100k? I highly doubt it. Sure, they require skills but why would it take 5 years to be trained on this? Why not start out with an easy area, and progressively build up to more difficult specialized work? This is something Farley cannot compute.
As for a solution, Farley offered a nothing burger.
Farley called out declining investment in skilled trades, poor productivity, and bureaucratic hurdles as key obstacles facing the essential economy. He challenged large employers and community leaders to act, advocating for more robust apprenticeship and vocational education programs, and lamented the lack of progress at federal levels despite President Trump’s push to de-emphasize four-year degrees in favor of trade schools.
“I see a lot of momentum with mayors, county leaders,” Farley said. “They get it. But they’re in the same boat we are. They don’t have a lot of resources. They’re struggling to get these projects done.” He said there’s a general attitude of frustration, a sense of “How the hell do we fix this?”
More bunk. Community leaders do not wish to act. If they did, why not get rid of needless and useless red tape, environmental reviews, committee hearings, permitting, community meetings, and NIMBYism prevents investment by communities. No one wants a factory near them. Worse yet, the process in certain states takes years to even be close to shovel ready!
As far as large employers, well Farley, fat cats like you have eaten up all free cash flow by mandating “dividends and share buybacks” as ways to juice returns for yourself and shareholders. Simply put, you have no capital to deploy so you count on a city or municipality to do so!
As far as vocational school, apprenticeships, and trade schools; your generation is the reason for these jobs going unfilled. For years in High School, 20 years ago for me, I heard your generation telling us if we didn’t go to college that we were failures. Turning a wrench or working in a factory was for screw ups. What did we get? A generation with 6-figure student loan debt and worthless job prospects. We all work in government jobs as paper pushers. Hence permitting takes forever. We told our kids “learn how to code” now those jobs are going away.
Even if you work in a factory, you are not viewed as an asset, you are a liability. If you are actually a worker not a contractor or vendor, you do not make 100K, I guarantee it. Your healthcare is likely watered down garbage, and you are likely pressured about working harder and faster constantly. When the economy slows down you get “laid off” or the plant might be idled. Worse yet, due to zero investment by the company in the factory you work in, one bad quarter means it could be shut down, and your job shipped 3 states over or to a whole other country. Gotta keep the investors happy! While the county or city suffers due to a loss of working-class jobs. But hey, Amazon is hiring at $20 an hour plus benefits!
Farley and his generation have screwed this country up so badly and now they are trying to quickly cover their tracks. Ha! What a joke! This will be part of a series that I will dive deeper into. The 90-day calendar is killing us. We are suffocating our own future generations for nothing but higher bonuses and salaries for Farley and his ilk. If you work at a factory, do not believe Farley for a minute, they will shut the plant down if it saves money, they could care less about you having to work 3 jobs to get by.