All that Five Star Ford needs is 12 more mechanics.
It might as well be 120.
A persistent nationwide shortage of auto technicians–today’s name for people who repair cars–has grown so severe that Sam Pack, owner of the dealership near Dallas, doubts that he can find 12 good candidates in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.
He won’t pay the $500 to $1,000 bonuses some dealers do to steal employees from each other. So now he’s preparing to recruit the way some big companies do: conducting “job fairs” out of town and, if necessary, out of state.
“This is probably the most difficult time I have ever seen in our industry” when it comes to hiring and keeping competent mechanics, said Pack, also a vice president of the National Automobile Dealers Association. “These days, a tech can literally pick up his tools at noon at one dealership and be working again somewhere else by 12:30.”
At a time when much of the auto industry is being downsized, outsourced or consolidated, well-trained technicians are finding opportunity under every hood– from new car dealerships to neighborhood garages and franchised service centers.
To outsiders, car repair is still stigmatized by a low-tech image and not one that high schools and colleges push. But as autos become increasingly complex and computerized, the old knuckle-busting trade of wrenches and bolts is turning more electronic and less blue-collar.
Trained automotive technicians are paid better than many college graduates and are in higher demand than most.
Some start at $30,000 a year and will be pulling down $50,000 or more annually within five years– and they won’t necessarily have to spend every workday up to their elbows in grease and grime to get it.
“Fifty thousand is probably the average, but I’ve had techs make more than $100,000 a year,” said Jimmy Bankston, president of Bankston Enterprises of Dallas, which runs five area dealerships.
“Between classroom training and on-the-job training, they have as much schooling as a doctor or a dentist or a lawyer–and some of them are paid like it.”
Auto repair “is almost a new field,” said Will Hanson, spokesman for General Motors’ Service Technology Group.
Just ask Shane Baxter, who at 29 is a nationally certified master technician. A longtime car enthusiast, Baxter had decided before graduating from high school that he wanted to become an auto mechanic, much to the chagrin of his father, who wanted him to go to college.
But now that the younger Baxter is making “way over” $50,000 a year, his father agrees that “it was absolutely the best decision I could have made.”
“When I first got out of high school, mechanics all carried knives,” Baxter said. “It was kind of rough. But it has really changed since then. There’s constant training and classes, and it’s a lot more professional.”
While the trade has changed, the public’s perception of it has not, and that’s limiting the number of people pursuing it as a career, industry officials said.
“Up to a point about 10 years ago, sons would follow fathers into the business,” said Lynn Peacock, executive director of dealership operations at the National Automobile Dealers Association. “I don’t think that’s as prevalent today. It used to be a dirty job, a strenuous job, and a lot of fathers may have wanted better for their sons.”
Partly because of auto repair’s gritty reputation, many young people do not even consider it as a career, and those who do often find they don’t have the math or reading skills to be trained to work on today’s vehicles.
That is the primary reason new-car dealerships alone are looking for 60,000 to 80,000 technicians, and other repair businesses need 20,000 to 40,000 more, industry officials said.
The shortage has even attracted federal government attention.
Several years ago, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was considering stringent new auto emissions tests, it discovered that there weren’t enough qualified techs to repair all the vehicles that would fail.
That led to the formation of the Coordinating Committee for Automotive Repair, a national trade association dedicated to increasing the number and training of auto techs.
“The only way environmental (air-quality) laws can be maintained is if cars are kept in good working order,” so people are needed to fix them, said Casey Caccavari, head of special projects for the automotive committee.
At Five Star Ford, Pack said he hopes to attract some of the 12 techs he needs by talking up his expanded facility loaded with the most modern equipment. But even with a nice new service department, “we’ll have to explore some other possibilities” to attract candidates, he said.
Many other dealers face the same problem. Carl Sewell, whose Cadillac and Lexus dealerships have a national reputation for service and are generally viewed as good places to work, is looking for 10 techs.
“With things as competitive as they are, we work very hard to make (the technicians’) jobs as pleasant as possible, as easy as possible,” said Sewell, chairman of Sewell Motor Co. of Dallas.
The tech shortage is delaying repairs at some dealerships, a source of customer irritation. It also is costing dealers money. The average service department could pick up at least $200,000 a year in revenue, a 10 percent increase, if it were fully staffed.
And another problem is looming. Ford has informed its dealers that if an unqualified technician performs warranty work, for example, a technician certified in cooling systems working on brakes, the factory may not reimburse the dealership for the repair.
People such as Marilyn Kolesar Lynch, dean of Brookhaven College’s automotive, environmental and tech prep division in Farmers Branch, Texas, are struggling with such pressure. “I get an average of six or seven calls every week from dealers looking for (auto tech) grads, and we certainly don’t have six or seven grads a week,” said Lynch.
The community college’s highly regarded program graduates about 35 to 40 auto techs a year. Most are sponsored by dealers when they enter and are spoken for before they finish.
GM and Ford have well-established auto technician programs at Brookhaven–GM’s began in 1979 and Ford’s started in 1983.
Students typically attend classes all day for nine or 10 weeks and then work in their sponsors’ dealerships for a similar period. That routine is repeated throughout the two-year program. “It’s extremely intensive,” said Lynch.
The school’s biggest challenge is finding qualified applicants, she said.
The average ’97 vehicle has at least seven computers in it that “talk,” she said. “We are dealing with applied physics, with processes and systems, not open the hood and jiggle something on the carburetor.”
Only about one in 10 applicants gains entry, Lynch said.
Many in the industry say the only way to ease the crunch is to interest students at the elementary and junior high levels in an auto tech career.
To some extent, that is happening. The Coordinating Committee for Automotive Repair recently staged a satellite broadcast promoting the auto tech field to 130,000 students in 1,300 schools, up from 30,000 students in 300 schools last year.
Nonetheless, many in the auto industry believe that the shortage will be around for some time.
“It’s one of those frustrating things,” Pack said. “It’s a great opportunity for some people. But in a lot of ways, it’s a well-kept secret.”
