- Ford CEO Jim Farley learned from older employees that some younger employees at the automobile manufacturer were working additional shifts at Amazon to supplement their income, he stated at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Farley mentioned he was inspired by Founder Henry Ford's 1914 choice to increase factory pay to $5 daily, converting temporary staff into permanent hires. Historically, younger individuals have avoided factory positions because of insufficient compensation.
Certain financial experts attribute the growth of the American middle stratum in the twentieth century to automobile manufacturer Henry Ford, who, in January of 1914, raised assembly line pay to $5, exceeding twice the typical earnings for an eight-hour shift.
TL;DR
- Ford CEO Jim Farley discovered younger employees worked extra shifts at Amazon due to insufficient Ford pay.
- Inspired by Henry Ford's 1914 $5 daily wage, Farley converted temporary Ford staff to permanent hires.
- This change granted employees increased pay, bonuses, and improved medical benefits, costing the company.
- Farley seeks government investment in trade schools to address the scarcity of skilled manufacturing labor.
More than 100 years later, facing the reality of many employees “barely getting by,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said he took a page out of the founder’s playbook.
The automotive company's top executive acknowledged the necessity for an alteration within his organization after conversing with long-serving staff members during collective bargaining discussions, discovering that newer Ford workers were holding down several positions and not getting sufficient rest because of insufficient pay, Farley stated in a interview with author and interviewer Walter Isaacson at the Aspen Ideas Festival earlier in the year.
“The older workers who’d been at the company said, ‘None of the young people want to work here. Jim, you pay $17 an hour, and they are so stressed,’” Farley said.
Farley discovered that some employees also had employment with Amazon, where they would labor for eight hours before commencing a seven-hour shift at Ford, getting just three or four hours of sleep. During a Ford Pro Accelerate gathering in September, the chief executive mentioned that new factory staff had informed him they were working up to three jobs.
Consequently, the firm converted temporary staff to permanent positions, granting them access to increased pay, profit distribution bonuses, and improved medical benefits. This shift was detailed in 2019 contract negotiations alongside the United Auto Workers (UAW), allowing temporary personnel to achieve permanent status following two years of uninterrupted service with Ford.
“It wasn’t easy to do,” Farley said. “It was expensive. But I think that’s the kind of changes we need to make in our country.”
Ford's own choice to double factory pay in 1914 wasn't out of kindness, but instead a tactic to draw in a dependable labor force, and also to encourage his own employees to purchase Ford items.
“He said, ‘I’m doing this because I want my factory worker to buy my cars. If they make enough money, they’ll buy my own product,’” Farley said. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, in a way.”
Trouble attracting Gen Z trade workers
Farley, who champions increasing U.S. Manufacturing output to bolster the vital economy, has called for younger employees to gain substantial trade backgrounds. Just this month, he expressed concern about the scarcity of skilled labor positions, stating on an episode of the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast that Ford has 5,000 open mechanic positions that are still vacant, even with a compensation of up to $120,000 annually for the occupation.
“Our governments have to get really serious about investing in trade schools and skilled trades,” he said at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “You go to Germany, every one of our factory workers has an apprentice starting in junior high school. Every one of those jobs has a person behind it for eight years that is trained.”
Despite the U.S. Seeing 3.8 million new manufacturing jobs by 2033, according to Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute, the younger generation of workers has largely turned away from the career path. As as some ditch college degrees, Gen Z enrollment in trade schools is on the rise, but the newest generation entering the workforce is largely eschewing factory jobs, citing low wages, according to a 2023 Soter Analytics study. U.S. Manufacturing jobs in the U.S. Have an average $25-per-hour wage—about $51,890 per year—falling short of the average American salary of $66,600.
Automakers in the U.S., such as Ford, might be attempting to attract younger individuals to pursue careers in manufacturing, yet they remain susceptible to employee complaints regarding compensation. In 2023, numerous UAW members, comprising 16,600 individuals employed by Ford, initiated a work stoppage prior to reaching a contract deal during October of that year. This action, in addition to boosting pay, also shortened the duration required for temporary staff to achieve permanent status.
Farley called the strike “completely unnecessary” from management’s perspective and maintained the onus of improving trade workers’ wages isn’t just on Ford.
“We’re not just going to hope it gets better,” he said. “We have the resources, and we have the know-how, after 120 years, to solve these problems, but we need more help from others.”
A version of this story originally published on Coins2Day.com on June 30, 2025.
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