Yes, there is a lack of people with tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars to start a mass manufacturing business of parts everyone can get in China for a tenth of the cost.
There is not a lack of mechanics who can assemble Fords on a factory line from pre-built components with instructions. FFS.
Yes, America has a serious problem. No, the Ford CEO is not actually pointing it out. He's fucking lying so he can justify using what amounts to slave labor in other countries while also touting "patriotism" branding while also refusing to do even the tiniest possible to alleviate the problem via training.
This job is very different from your great grandfathers Ford factory job. Go tour a modern car factory.
The concept of a line worker is on its way out. The work is more on the side of maintaining the contraptions that make the car and retooling/tweaking it on a regular basis.
I’m not a native English speaker and I have a hard time figuring out what is behind the term "mechanics" here. What I find online seems to point to working in a garage and knowing how to do repairs, not being a line worker or technician in a factory doing maintenance on machinery like you say. In the article it’s confusing, they talk about servicing and trades school, so not really factory work. Maybe I’m lost in translation but it looks like even English speakers are not using a vague term to talk about different things here? What does is 120k job really about, working in a Ford garage fixing cars or being a factory technician?
In general (except for Tesla), there are no $Company garages in the US like the rest of the world, all repair work is handled by privately owned dealerships, whose existence is mandated by the government in most states. Experienced mechanics make about 40$ per hour at these, with juniors about half that. You'd not have trouble finding a mechanic for this rate, it being slightly above the median income.
There is not a lack of mechanics who can assemble Fords on a factory line from pre-built components with instructions. FFS.
Yes, America has a serious problem. No, the Ford CEO is not actually pointing it out. He's fucking lying so he can justify using what amounts to slave labor in other countries while also touting "patriotism" branding while also refusing to do even the tiniest possible to alleviate the problem via training.