Episode 84
Addressing the Trade Workforce Crisis: Insights from Industry Leaders
The discussion elucidates the pressing emergency regarding the dearth of skilled tradespeople in the United States, a predicament underscored by the inability of notable corporations, such as Ford Motor Company, to fill thousands of mechanic positions despite offering lucrative salaries. Eric G and John Dudley delve into the implications of this shortage, emphasizing the critical need for vocational training and support for initiatives aimed at encouraging youth to pursue careers in the trades. They highlight the exemplary efforts of organizations like Girls Build, which empower young individuals, particularly girls, by providing them with essential skills and confidence in various trades. The conversation serves as a clarion call for the community to recognize the importance of skilled labor and to actively engage in solutions that will cultivate the next generation of tradespeople. As we explore this multifaceted issue, we advocate for a shift in perception regarding vocational careers, underscoring their significance in our evolving economy.
In an incisive dialogue, Eric G and John Dudley confront a critical issue facing the United States: the acute shortage of skilled tradespeople. The impetus for this discussion stems from alarming statements made by Jim Farley, CEO of Ford Motor Company, who revealed that Ford is unable to fill approximately 5,000 mechanic positions, even with the offering of salaries reaching $120,000. This revelation not only highlights the urgency of the situation but also casts a spotlight on the broader implications of workforce deficiencies in sectors integral to national infrastructure, including emergency services, plumbing, and electrical work. The hosts articulate a palpable sense of urgency, contending that the nation must act swiftly to remedy this skills gap before it escalates into a more profound crisis.
The episode further explores initiatives aimed at addressing this pressing issue, particularly focusing on organizations such as Girls Build, which strives to cultivate skills in young women, thereby addressing both the skills gap and gender disparity in the trades. Eric shares his personal involvement with Girls Build, illustrating how such programs are essential for nurturing the next generation of skilled laborers. The discussion elucidates the transformative power of vocational training, which not only provides individuals with lucrative career paths but also enhances community resilience and economic stability.
As the episode draws to a close, Eric and John emphasize the imperative for a cultural shift in how society perceives skilled trades. They advocate for a reevaluation of educational priorities, urging parents, educators, and policymakers to recognize the intrinsic value of vocational training. The conversation serves as a compelling reminder that investing in the trades is tantamount to investing in the future of the nation—one where skilled tradespeople are celebrated as vital contributors to society, rather than overlooked in favor of traditional academic pathways.
Takeaways:
- The current labor crisis in the trades is alarming, with over 1 million job openings unfilled.
- Ford Motor Company's CEO highlighted the urgent need for skilled tradespeople in America.
- Programs are emerging to encourage youth, particularly girls, to pursue careers in the trades.
- Organizations like Girls Build are crucial in providing training and support to future tradespeople.
- The perception of trade jobs as inferior must change to attract more individuals into these careers.
- Financial incentives, such as scholarships for trade education, are essential to address the skills gap.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Ford Motor Company
- Girls Build
- Mike Rowe
- Parr Lumber
- Milwaulkee
Mentioned in this episode:
Its time to upgrade your website with Site Hype Designs!
Be one of the first to grab the 10 spots available for Site Hype Designs special holiday sale! Message John at John@Sitehypedesigns.com and use promo code Johnny Claus in the subject line and see if you qualify!
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:The House Pro Insider.
Speaker B:This is the podcast for trades pros, carpenters, contractors, interior designers and innovators building homes, renovating spaces, or creating the next big thing.
Speaker B:Let's dive in with your host, Eric.
Speaker A:G. Welcome to the around the House Pro Insider.
Speaker A:This is where Johnny and I sit down and talk with you about the latest in home improvement construction design.
Speaker A:Even if you're an inventor, your business, how you can make it better, and what are the topics of the day.
Speaker A:Johnny, good to see you, brother.
Speaker A:On a Sunday morning, man.
Speaker A:We are just kind of burning the candle at all ends.
Speaker C:Couple of workhorses, buddy.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:Thanks for coming on, brother.
Speaker A:I know you're busy as well.
Speaker A:I wanted to talk today, man, about a huge subject that we've been talking about for years.
Speaker A:Last night I was actually at the Girls Build fundraiser, which we'll talk about in a second.
Speaker A:But on Friday, finally, we're starting to see some people really waving the flag outside of Mike Rowe and some of those other guys out there, but Jim Farley, who is the CEO of Ford Motor Company.
Speaker A:Yeah, he is Chris Farley's cousin.
Speaker C:Really?
Speaker A:When I look at him, all I see is Chris Farley, and I think he's selling brake shoes or something.
Speaker C:Another movie, dude.
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:I just see him every time and I'm like, all right, is he living in a van down the river or what's going on?
Speaker C:That's great.
Speaker A:Oh, he is awesome.
Speaker A:I just laugh.
Speaker A:But here's the thing.
Speaker A:He shocked the world on a podcast on Friday on an interview and said Ford has been unable to fill some 5,000 job openings for mechanics across the country, despite offering a salary of $120,000 a year.
Speaker A:And he's warning of a dire shortage of skills TradePeople in the US to quote him out of this interview at the New York Post, it says, we are in trouble in our country.
Speaker A:We are not talking about this enough.
Speaker A:And he said.
Speaker A:Jim Farley said this on an episode of the Office Hours Business Edition podcast published last week.
Speaker A:He goes, we have more than a million openings in critical jobs.
Speaker A:Emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians and tradespeople.
Speaker A:And we're not filling it.
Speaker A:And it's pretty crazy.
Speaker A:And he says it takes.
Speaker C:You can cut the AI argument there.
Speaker C:I guess that, oh, it's gonna take all the job.
Speaker C:No, fellas.
Speaker A:No, it's not.
Speaker C:There's a million waiting and they can't be filled.
Speaker C:Come on.
Speaker A:I wouldn't want to be middle management out there.
Speaker A:I wouldn't want to be somebody that was a proofreader or something that could easily eat.
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker A:You might.
Speaker A:It's like when we all turned on the Internet and started getting rid of landlines.
Speaker A:All of a sudden the telephone workers had to retrain or all the people that were making typewriters had to figure stuff out.
Speaker A:Yeah, technology does that.
Speaker C:But let's be clear.
Speaker C:We need humans for several decades longer before we're all going to be put out of work.
Speaker C:So drop the panic and embrace the change, man.
Speaker A:If you want to go into a union and go get trained as an electrician or a plumber or even a concrete worker, or I am sure Ford will help you get trained.
Speaker A:It said earlier this year, Ford rolled out a $4 million initiative to fund scholarships for auto technicians.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Otherwise known as free money.
Speaker C:Yeah, get in there, kids.
Speaker A:Okay, so would you rather have someone pay you to go to school, or do you want to go pay 120,000 bucks to go get your degree at Harvard from your humanities degree and then ask me what size latte I would like to after you graduate.
Speaker C:Yeah, man.
Speaker A:Still have to pay it back.
Speaker A:Brutal.
Speaker C:But it's that brutal.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:They're still able to sell higher education as an institution.
Speaker C:I'm not sure how, but I think we've just accustomed to it.
Speaker C:And so it's the go to.
Speaker C:You got to go to college.
Speaker C:We're still eating big business.
Speaker C:Still feeding that lie.
Speaker A:Yeah, we are.
Speaker C:No, you don't.
Speaker A:You know why?
Speaker A:Because we have the same educators in the schools.
Speaker A:We have the same ones that are sitting there going, oh, why would you want to be a plumber?
Speaker A:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker A:Handyman Bob, who was the previous host to this show, was at a thing where he was at a high school thing probably eight or nine years ago, maybe 10 years ago.
Speaker A:And it was a trade school day at this high school in Portland.
Speaker A:And the principal gets up there and goes, all right, kids, now we got a plumber coming up to talk.
Speaker A:And remember, if you don't do good in school, you could be a plumber.
Speaker C:Yeah, you told me that I could.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So jumps up there and he goes, I make more than your principal.
Speaker A:If you want to come out on my boat sometime and take a look.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:If you don't want to.
Speaker A:If you're not good in school, you could be a principal.
Speaker A:And fed it right back.
Speaker A:But that's the problem we have.
Speaker A:It's absolutely incredible, the issues.
Speaker A:And last night, Elisa and I went over to Girls Build, and you and I have Talked a little bit about that years ago.
Speaker A: with since their beginning in: Speaker A:And Mike Row helped them really get going because she was going around taking young girls, teaching them skills in the trades from like 8, 9, all the way up to 15, 16.
Speaker A:And they do summer camps for the week.
Speaker A:She was running it out of an old school bus, storing tools in there, trying to do what she could.
Speaker A:And there's nobody better than Katie out there for just helping people out.
Speaker A:And Mike Rowe came in and his Micro Gives Back program and gave her a big trailer, like a big wells cargo type trailer with tools in it.
Speaker A:Everything else.
Speaker A:She was actually coming on the around the house show right about that time.
Speaker A:So we actually held off in the interview for a few weeks because they didn't want her to talk about it yet.
Speaker A:So we held off on that.
Speaker A:She got on the radio show the next day.
Speaker A:Somebody broke into the warehouse that it was in and broke into the trailer and somebody skinnied down through the skylight and took most of the tools that weren't that would fit through the skylight.
Speaker A:So then I went out and raised tools, showed up with a cargo van full of tools for her from people like, you know, Par Lumber here, locally, Milwaukee.
Speaker A:All my favorite people out there that I could reach out to.
Speaker A:And a lot of people did a lot of good with that.
Speaker A:I've helped her.
Speaker A:Last night was a great fundraiser, but it was surprising what she does.
Speaker A:And I just wanted to talk about this for a second because I'd like to get everybody, wherever you're listening in the country, to support your local nonprofit that is helping people get into the trades like this because really, these are going to be your next workers.
Speaker A:Yeah, this is your next generation of people.
Speaker A:And for instance, and I learned this last night, so she bases the price of her classes on the median poverty rate of the county.
Speaker A:She's taking the summer class and it's a five day summer camp for these kids, feeds them three meals a day.
Speaker A: average cost per kid is like: Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:But a lot of them, when they come in there, it's $250, $350.
Speaker A:And so it's a really good way to get kids to start learning, especially girls.
Speaker A:Give them the confidence with tools, and it's awesome.
Speaker A:And she had a rough childhood and she makes it so it's a safe place for them to come to.
Speaker A:She's got keen donated work boots for them.
Speaker A:I'd help set that up with them initially.
Speaker A:So if the girls show up in sandals because that's all they have, you know that they have something to wear.
Speaker A:Three warm meals a day because she has a lot of those kids aren't getting fed three meals a day in those poverty situations.
Speaker A:So it's just a really great way to help these kids pull themselves out and be able to become treats people, homeowners and everything else and keep them out of trouble.
Speaker C:Thank God there's a couple angels out there, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I think I didn't see the final number last night, but I think we raised probably 50 to 70,000 bucks last night, which was cool for them.
Speaker C:Nice.
Speaker A:But if you want to find out more about those guys, they're all over the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker A:But just go to girls build.org and it was really cool.
Speaker A:We had a great time last night.
Speaker A:So it was a fun, fun evening.
Speaker A:But we got.
Speaker A:I'm going to have that.
Speaker A:I want to have them on the show.
Speaker A:And we'll have her on here too, Johnny, so we can talk more about getting in the coming months.
Speaker A:We'll get that.
Speaker A:But it's such a big deal getting people in the trades.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:And again, this is a conversation we keep returning back to over the last three, four, five months, whatever.
Speaker C:This particular topic just keeps coming up.
Speaker C:And it's coming up not just with you and me.
Speaker C:It's coming up in just regular people I'm talking to.
Speaker C:It's coming up in.
Speaker C:Obviously I'm in the tech world right now and I even the younger generation, my little brother's generation, they're in their late 30s, early 40s and they're like, yeah, trades are a good play now.
Speaker C:And it's just what you said, right?
Speaker C:It's the note takers and the brief readers and bell checkers, mouth breathers that are going to be replaced, man.
Speaker C:But the world will never not have a need for, not for a long freaking time with the robots take over and build houses.
Speaker C:Okay, great.
Speaker A:Austin Dynamics isn't there yet.
Speaker C:We're a long ways from robots changing spark plugs and calibrating things correctly and hands on trade things that need to be done on a huge level.
Speaker C:We're talking about things that everybody uses.
Speaker C:Everybody uses a car, everybody needs a home, everybody.
Speaker C:Do you think you're going to stay hands off and beat the AI race and be a smarter whatever.
Speaker C:I don't want to pick on anybody but a smarter tech person than AI is going to be.
Speaker C:That's a uphill battle, my friend.
Speaker C:So go learn something where you can put your hands on something and make a difference and fill a need that 99 of the population needs.
Speaker C:And I don't care if that's fixing shoes or building the house, man.
Speaker C:Like this hands on trades will not go away for no long after I die.
Speaker A:Let's say before we get the comments and the emails coming in, the 3D printed house that they talk about with concrete is a gimmick.
Speaker A:I'm sorry, it's a Gimmick.
Speaker A:It's not 3D printing.
Speaker A:It is a pumper truck with a nozzle that is going around.
Speaker A:And I'm sorry, I don't think you could ever make that meat building code anywhere.
Speaker A:That you're spraying mortar on a stack, on a tack like it's coming out of a.
Speaker A:Like you're decorating a cake.
Speaker A:Ain't gonna happen in my.
Speaker A:In my lifetime here.
Speaker A:Not gonna happen.
Speaker A:It's all cute and kitschy and you go, oh, look at this 3D printed house.
Speaker A:It's not the future.
Speaker A:It's not the future.
Speaker C:It's not the future.
Speaker C:And not everybody wants that type of home.
Speaker C:And again, like, sure, we've mechanized so many things.
Speaker C:Take CNC machine and look what that can do, right?
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker C:But you cannot mechanize an entire production line.
Speaker C:Print out these panels, pop up these modular homes or prefab homes or without men involved.
Speaker C:It's still not possible.
Speaker C:It's still not possible.
Speaker C:And even if they did have four robots that could pull the panels off the truck and stand them up correctly, you still need a couple dudes to watch the fricking robot.
Speaker C:Like, it's just not going away that quickly.
Speaker C:So ease off on the panic.
Speaker C:Three trailer semi trucks are not going to drive themselves for a long time.
Speaker C:Like, we can't even get uber squared away yet.
Speaker C:So take a breath and.
Speaker C:And again, so many people want to badmouth it and downplay it and be scared of it.
Speaker C:And I think if you embrace it, you will be a part of that.
Speaker C:Next you'll be the guy telling the robot what to do instead of going, what the hell's a robot, man?
Speaker C:You just.
Speaker C:We don't get a choice now.
Speaker C:You have to embrace it if you're going to stay going.
Speaker C:And that's an Indian in any industry, I believe.
Speaker C:But yeah, am taking all our jobs.
Speaker A:Not in this trade.
Speaker A:It's not in this trade.
Speaker A:I tell you what, too, there's so many cool things out there now that they've got safety glasses where you've got a button on the side that you can grab AI and ask a question.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Nice.
Speaker A:And there's some cool stuff like that where you can go in and have technology.
Speaker A: we're coming into the end of: Speaker A:Still not putting people in fast enough.
Speaker A:So that deficit of tradespeople we have not caught up to even keep it even.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Let alone a deficit.
Speaker A:So make sure you got it down out there.
Speaker C:I think that's why it's getting talked about so much recently.
Speaker C:People are recognizing it.
Speaker C:And also I think the young.
Speaker C:The younger generation is recognizing that maybe I'm not that fast.
Speaker C:Maybe I'm not quick enough to get to create the next SaaS product or the.
Speaker C:Because now AI has blown even the smart tech guys.
Speaker C:It's blown a bunch of them out of the water because you just can't keep up with it all.
Speaker C:No, it's not.
Speaker C:Gone are the days of selling shark necklaces on Shopify and making a million dollars, my friends.
Speaker A:Like, not happening.
Speaker A:Same with ebay, too.
Speaker C:The labor barrier has raised and you better be damn good at it if you're going to play in that field.
Speaker C:And sorry, not everybody's good enough to operate there.
Speaker C:Like, you got to be a freaking Elon Musk type genius to.
Speaker C:To really make some things happen there.
Speaker C:So that leaves you looking back going, I could be a teacher, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:For 40 grand a year.
Speaker C:Or I could go be a plumber and make 120.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So exactly.
Speaker C:Do the math.
Speaker A:Right on, brother.
Speaker A:Right on.
Speaker A:Guys, sorry we got this out a little late this week.
Speaker A:This is on me.
Speaker A:I had a busy week here and I was out filming some new commercial commercials for Portland General Electric here.
Speaker A:So I've been tied up and getting some projects done.
Speaker A:But Johnny, thanks for jumping on a Sunday here as well, man.
Speaker A:I know you're cranking away on stuff there too, but we'll.
Speaker A:We'll keep you guys updated and next week we'll have a new episode up.
Speaker A:But if you have any questions.
Speaker A:And as well, if you're looking at your website too, I just want to pitch this because we got a promotion going on.
Speaker A:If it's not up anymore, that means we've already sold out on these.
Speaker A:So if you're listening to this a year from now, that deal's already gone.
Speaker A:But Johnny's got a special deal going right now.
Speaker A:You can hear it in the podcast notes here and see it and listen on the show.
Speaker A:But we really got something going cool here where Johnny's going to help out 10 special companies out there.
Speaker A:Send him a note, see if.
Speaker A:See if you qualify, if you're in the right spot for this.
Speaker A:And he's going to help you at the end of the year get your business back up and running where you thought it should be.
Speaker C:Just our other way of helping contractors.
Speaker C:Let's get some more leads rolling into your inbox and get some better qualified leads and get some better projects and get you more revenue.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:And this is probably cheaper than your bar tab for last month.
Speaker A:It's not a bad thing.
Speaker A:Not your bar tab, but I'm talking about.
Speaker C:I was gonna say if it would have been my bar tab, it's about three times cheaper than would have been.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:All right, guys.
Speaker A:Thanks, Johnny.
Speaker A:I'm Eric Chi and you've been listening to the around the House Pro Insider.
Speaker B:Thanks for tuning in to the around the House Pro Insider.
Speaker B:We are happy to be back.
Speaker B:Make sure you subscribe so you know to catch the next episode.
Speaker B:We will see you next time.
Speaker C:Wanna get it back in the balance and where it's at, man?
Speaker C:I need to focus now.
Speaker C:What is that?
