Is there a shortage of qualified mechanics?

Sort of true for the labor market in general, but especially in skilled trades, a lot of baws who were busting arse for decades said frick it during or after the Covid hysteria. We were always going to face a shortage of tradesmen of all stripes without a serious recruitment effort, but I think we got it a few years earlier than expected.

there's just a nationwide shortage of people who want to actually work for their money.

There's a shortage of pretty much every skilled trade.

Do you even listen to Mike Rowe bro?

Even the dealerships are struggling to get guys to change oil.

There are good shops paying mechanics and collision repair guys well over $100k and can't keep up with the workload.
The ridiculous push for "everybody gets a college degree" was bad already but will go exponential in the next 10-20 years as the last technical generation retires.

Most mechanics now replace entire components as opposed to repairing them. The weakest skill I've found with mechanics is electrical problem solving.

There’s a shortage of qualified everything other than qualified dumbasses. Plenty of them

Mechanics have been eating shite for years. In the 90's everyone was saying what a great trade being a mechanic is going to be in the near future. That never really materialized and now has a lot of older burned out techs badmouthing their profession. Younger guys hear this and go elsewhere to find a trade.

On top of that cars have become computer machines and the smarts and time it takes to diagnose problems just isn't paying off for techs. There's a saying in the industry that becoming a good diagnostic tech is a good way to be poor. Reason being that diagnosing a difficult problem can take hours in just researching manuals/ service data. Hard to bill for 5 hours in finding a loose ground wire in some obscure harness. However changing parts is quick and allows for higher per hour billing. No one wants the hard jobs, understandably.

Some parts are also still tough to get too, my brother is a tech at a dealership here for a German car brand and said they're often waiting weeks for parts they used to be able to get in a day or so. He's been doing it about 5ish years and makes a pretty solid living, works in an AC/heated shop and seems to enjoy it.

quote:

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So the past couple of times I have brought my car in for repairs, both places I went to were short-handed with mechanics. What should have been a quick job took hours. I’m just wondering if this is a pattern or maybe I’ve been unlucky these past couple of times. Have any of you noticed this as well?

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Massive increase in work for mechanics in the last two years due to supply issues of new vehicles and rapid increase in costs of new vehicles.

seems like one of the worst trades to get into imo

much rather be a plumber or electrician