Training Automotive Technicians - They Do Not Want to Work on American Cars

What is happening to our automotive industry out there? We are closing plants all the while the foreign car companies are opening up new ones in our country and out selling the United States. Now Toyota has surpassed GM as the top seller! My story is not about selling the cars though, it is about the shortage of qualified automotive technicians and training new ones.

The automotive technician shortage is at over 35000 and growing to over 130000 by the year 2012 if there is not a change in the way we teach and treat our up and coming technicians. The next wave of technicians leaving the field will be happening over the next 10 years in large numbers since allot of them are retiring babyboomers. We will have to have the manufactures help to do this and the pay will have to increase before the prospects will decide to get into the field. When you look at the complexity of the new cars and hybrids you will have to have Hugh amounts of training in the electrical electronics field to be successfully in the field and there is not allot of technicians in the field now that have the training since the manufactures will not release the proprietary information needed to train the new students or technicians entering the field.

I teach at a local community college for automotive technology. The students that graduate my program will go out into the field as an automotive technician entry level and then it is up to the manufacture companies to continue there training and make them into full fledge technicians. There is approximately twenty to thirty students graduating my program every year and I know it is a small amount compared to the mass shortage of technicians in the field. I try to prepare them the best we can so they can succeed in the automotive field. The manufactures need to support schools with up to date material and donations for training aids.

The graduated students have a large choice of where to work and where to continue the training to work on ever more complex cars of today and the ones of tomorrow. We find that the students do not want to go to the American manufactures since they are not sending them to additional training or helping them to succeed in the field. They seem to be thrown to the wolves as we say and not being taught the ins and outs of the industry. The Foreign manufactures are doing the right thing for my students, they are sending them to manufacture training right after their probation period. The pay to start is about the same and the benefits are the same for the most part. So why are the students going to the Foreign manufactures? It is the training and the opportunities they present.

The American cars are getting better and the technicians are great that work for them so when are the American manufactures going to realize they need to support the local schools that teach the new technicians and train the trainer to get the help they need. I go in the local dealerships and find them full of older techs that are on the verge of retirement. What to do? If the manufactures help the schools then they will get a better quality and better trained Technician.