TechForce Foundation offers scholarships and other resources to students interested in technician career paths nationwide. It released its 2024 Transportation Technician Supply and Demand report in December. While the overall employed mechanic headcount grew 2.8% year-over-year – a larger spurt than the U.S. labor force’s growth rate of 2.0% – it’s simply not enough…by a long shot. The five-year industry demand is nearing a million unfilled jobs.

The five-year demand for mechanics in the automotive, collision, diesel, and aviation fields hits 971,000

Less than 25% of this near-million gap is due to industry growth. That means more than 700,000 of these available or soon-to-be-open jobs are simply needed to replace folks who are already working as mechanics today. So why the huge number?

More and more trained, tenured auto, diesel, and aviation techs are leaving. Some of this headcount is rollover from previous year gaps that never got filled. The Diesel sector is especially suffering.

And while mechanics are mostly retiring, some are just walking away from the industry with plenty of time left to work elsewhere.

How did we get here? Well, for one, as a Millennial, I was lied to.

In the early 2000s, Millennials got a different message than their parents and grandparents: Go to a four-year college. Signs the loans, whatever the cost. Major in desk work. This is the only respectable option.

In turn, many of the students who loved working on tactile problems and projects chose IT degrees. Certainly, some went for engineering, too. 20 years later, then, there’s no one to replace today’s retirees.

And I can’t blame them. I grew up in a car repair facility and helped run it for over a decade. Mechanics are highly intelligent, curious people who love what they do – especially how their work helps their community.

But it’s no fun standing under a dripping car after a good snow looking for small leaks. Or getting a broken or dead car onto a lift. I don’t know of a mechanic whose back doesn’t hurt after years on their feet all day.

Many shops entertain “traditional” business models that force mechanics to work hard and fast all day long for low enough pay leading them to eventually realize this flavor of hamster wheel just plain sucks.

Flat-rate pay means a high hourly rate, but you need an ever-growing tool bill to get equipment that makes removing and installing super speedy.

When techs are forced to buy their own advanced tools, untenable SnapOn debt is pervasive. It literally ruins household financial health, preventing some mechanics from buying their first home or affording anything other than a beater car themselves.

Don’t get me wrong. That whole idea of signing a blank check to attend a perfectly manicured academic bubble for four years was truly worth it…in my case.

But I wasn’t in the bubble. I commuted to (The) Ohio State University while living at home, working in between a full-time class schedule. With my dad’s help, I graduated without student debt – a miracle mix of a helpful parent, careful budgeting, and around-the-clock labor many of my peers didn’t experience. After all, they’d been told to go ahead and enroll wherever they wanted. Private art school? Sure! The world is your oyster!

But in 2008, the year I graduated, the housing market crashed. I was left scraping the bottom of the job barrel since more experienced applicants took roles I would have had a good shot with otherwise. After months of applying, I “won” a job editing fiction. It paid little and had zero benefits. Thank goodness I didn’t have a loan payment.

After a short stint of that, I thought I was done with The Arts. I ended up selling home and auto insurance for State Farm – a role that didn’t require a college degree. After some time there, I’d thought becoming a State Farm agent made sense and entered a special program. My grandpa fell ill, though, and my dad expressed wanting to spend as much time with him as possible.

I left State Farm and reentered the shop. My granda passed. My dad realized that for the first time, he hadn’t come in every day, and the shop was running quite smoothly. Eventually, I started writing about shop operations for MOTOR Magazine. Eight years later, I took a swing at MotorBiscuit, wondering if I could fly in media full-time, and here I am. War wounds here, there, and everywhere, of course, but I made it in. In the end, I needed that degree.

But what so many of my fellow Millennials weren’t prepared for is how the cost of four-year college suffocated their ability to move smoothly into adulthood, to enter the workforce with earning ability to sustain financial independence.

And working at a desk all day, it turns out, isn’t all that fun, either.

But there’s positive light showing through: Interest in trade careers is growing

While the TechForce report shows a clear sector emergency, more and more young folks are choosing a mechanic career. They’re enrolling in tech schools or onboarding straight into a tech environment as apprentices. That extra .8% in year-over-year growth over the nation’s labor force growth means something.

Here’s what we’re figuring out: You shouldn’t need a six-figure college degree to get a good job with meaningful benefits and viable growth tracks.

Sectors with a high demand for mechanic entrants are figuring things out, too. They’re offering tuition assistance, better benefits that reflect a true value of the staff, and building a stronger work culture. These efforts lead to higher recruitment and retention rates.

Of course, there’s plenty more to do to convince a million youth to get on a mechanic track. Time will tell if these cultural shifts are enough to fill the gap. After all, there are AI-powered robots incoming that might make that 971,000 demand “less” of a problem…