Ford CEO Says There Aren't Enough Mechanics. Then a Mechanic Responds

Re:Ford CEO Says There Aren't Enough Mechanics. Then a Mecha... by Ajedi32 on Tuesday October 07, 2025 @11:32AM (#45504414)

That's what a shortage is, a short-term undersupply. Market forces will eventually correct the problem if allowed to operate normally (e.g. prices spike, incentivizing more supply), but like you said that takes time. If it's a shortage of goods it can take a while to ramp up production. If it's a shortage of skilled labor it can take a while for people to learn those skills. Either way it's fundamentally the same type of problem.

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Re:Ford CEO Says There Aren't Enough Mechanics. Then a Mecha... by vjvjvjvjghv on Tuesday October 07, 2025 @03:59PM (#45508071)

The market alone doesn’t work well with things like training that had feedback loops of several years. In German there is the term “Schweinezyklus”. It goes like this:

* companies complain about lack of trained workers

* more people start training

* after a few years companies complain about too many workers and don’t hire them

* people stop training

* companies complain about lack of trained workers

I was part of this in the 90s in mechanical engineering. When I started studying the job market was great. When I finished there were no jobs. Luckily I could jump to programming.

I think we are seeing the same with CS now. Too many people jumped into it.

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Re:Ford CEO Says There Aren't Enough Mechanics. Then a Mecha... by Ajedi32 on Tuesday October 07, 2025 @04:33PM (#45508472)

Predicting the future is indeed famously difficult, which is why even markets have a hard time with forecasting and responding to demand years into the future. I don't think such over corrections are a market failure, just a lack of omniscience.

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