I recently spent a week in Butler County, Pennsylvania, covering the build of Jeff Lutz’s new race car. Located about 45 minutes north of Pittsburgh, Butler County is a mixture of suburbia and small-town Americana, and apparently, an area in desperate need of skilled labor. While there, I met at least a dozen people who told me that their businesses either couldn’t find enough help or couldn’t retain employees.
Jeff Thompson runs Pro 1 Automotive, the shop that painted Jeff Lutz’s car. He has one employee in his 20s and just hired his 70-year-old uncle, Harvey, to work three days a week because Uncle Harv is more productive and reliable than any of the other 20-somethings he’s hired. Several of Jeff’s friends stopped by to see the car being painted and all had similar stories about their jobs. One friend said the body shop he worked at had a six-week backup due to a lack of help. A mechanic friend told me dealerships and independent shops from around the county have been trying to send him work on a freelance basis because they’re short on help. The shop is so busy that he has to turn down half the work and sends it to a friend’s shop, which also can’t keep up with its workload, due to lack of help. I asked if this was specialized work like electrical or driveability repairs, but was shocked to hear much of the work was routine maintenance: oil changes and brake jobs.
Absolutely floored, I joked that I should fly to Pittsburgh once a month to do oil changes for a week. I’d probably come home with some extra money in my pocket, even considering flight and hotel costs, and all the guys there encouraged me to do just that.
This was alarming to me, because I believe it’s the leading edge of a problem yet to reveal its full impact on our society. Lots of people are quick to blame technology. I heard words to the effect of, “All kids want to do these days is stare at their damn phones,” all week long. While I think this is somewhat true, it’s a superficial assessment of the problem. I believe the bigger problem is a lack of training programs for skilled labor jobs.
Fewer high schools and community colleges offer shop classes and technology programs. The ones that remain are woefully underfunded, and our culture seems to have embraced the pedantic and misguided notion that you need a college degree to get a good job. Nothing could be further from the truth.
College isn’t for everyone, and for people who like to work with their hands fixing or building things, a college degree is probably a huge waste of time and money. While it’s true and unfortunate that this country has lost a lot of manufacturing jobs to the global market, there are still high-quality jobs going unfilled, and the U.S. still excels in CNC manufacturing.
There is a huge demand for people to fill those positions. Automotive repair is a highly technical job now that computers monitor or control nearly everything your car does. Some of the most talented chassis and engine builders I’ve met in my time with Car Craft don’t have college degrees. They started by changing oil or sanding primer. If you think you want to work on cars, get training (either through a program or as an apprentice), learn your craft, and the work will come to you.
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