The CEO of Ford Jim Farley: the working shortages of the blue passes hamper the expansion of the AI ​​data center, the remodeling plans

With the AI ​​planned in Balloon to a market of $ 4.8 billions by 2033, Farley warned that the United States has neglected the workforce necessary to build and maintain data centers and manufacturing facilities. While President Donald Trump has imposed radical rates to relaunch factory jobs, he continues to be recruitment and retention problems in American manufacturing.

“I think the intention is there, but there is nothing to fill the ambition,” said Farley Axios Monday. “How can we reshape all these things if we don’t have people to work there?”

Farley’s concern about staffing the IA data centers is part of what he identifies as a crisis affecting the “essential economy” of blue collars constituting 12 billions of dollars in American GDP, according to the ASPEN Institute. The CEO of Ford said that AI could eliminate half of the white passes, while creating a request for mass of skilled trades.

But the workforce to fill this growing clamor for workers is not there, said Farley. The country is short of 600,000 factory workers and 500,000 construction workers at the moment, and will need 400,000 automotive technicians over the next three years, he wrote in a LinkedIn article in June.

Analysts attributed this shortage to an aging inner workforce, as well as restrictive immigration policies limiting demographic growth. Farley blamed a lack of conscience surrounding the shortage.

“We all think that America can do better than we do,” he said during the Aspen Ideas Festival in June. “We need a new state of mind, which recognizes the success, the importance of this essential economy and the importance for our dynamism and our sustainability as a country.”

IA infrastructure shortage shortage

This labor shortage is already felt in the AI ​​sector. Dame Dawn Childs, CEO of Pure Data Centers Group, a data center operator based in the United Kingdom, said that, while demand from the data center is booming, a shortage of construction workers hinders expansion plans.

“There are simply not enough construction workers qualified to go around,” she told BBC last year.

In addition, data centers also find it difficult to fulfill specialized functions due to shortages of skilled labor. The IT services management company, found in a survey in 2020 with data centers operators that half experienced challenges to find candidates for open positions, against 38% in 2018. A Deloitte report in April 2025 revealed that this problem persisted, with 51% of 120 executives from the United States Electricity Company based in the United States. “More than 60% of respondents said it was their first challenge.

Meanwhile, the request for IT data centers continues to skyrocket, providing for 6.7 billions of dollars in world capital expenses by 2030, according to McKinsey. Large cloud service providers called hyperscalers should spend $ 300 billion in only 2025.

“On the surface, it looks like a problem of people, and most of them are,” said Farley Axios. “But it’s not so simple. It is a problem of awareness. It is a societal problem.”

Farley said that the resolution of the labor shortage will also require policy changes. He pleaded for an increase in investments in vocational training and learning opportunities, as well as pro-exchange policies and a regulatory reform of capacity building.

“If we succeed – when we succeed – we will take greater and higher problems,” he said. “Right now, the problems we are trying to solve are quite practical. I need 6,000 technicians at my dealerships on Monday morning.”

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