Shortage of mechanics spurs competition for talent

SEATTLE — When Mike Zebley took a job delivering tools to Seattle-area car shops this year, he quickly learned that what most of his customers needed wasn’t tools so much as people who knew how to use them.

Nearly every shop on Zebley’s route was so hardup for skilled mechanics that many promised Zebley up to $1,000 for anyone he could recruit. Despite the incentive, however, Zebley hasn’t been able to deliver a single mechanic. “Everybody that I go to needs techs,” he said. “They’re pretty desperate.”

Demand for repairs and maintenance is rebounding from the pandemic. But many garages are so shortstaffed they’ve had to delay work or send customers elsewhere — despite, in some cases, offering hefty signing bonuses and sixfigure salaries for experienced candidates.

Seattle isn’t the only place short on mechanics, collision specialists and other automotive technicians — the problem is national

What’s driving the shortage? Some garage owners, echoing complaints in other industries, blame the $300-a-week federal pandemic unemployment benefit that was added to regular state jobless benefits in response to the job market’s sluggish recovery from COVID-19-related layoffs.

Yet while those enhanced benefits, which expired Sept. 4, may have contributed to the shortage, especially for entrylevel workers, automotive specialists were scarce long before COVID-19, industry experts say.

One longstanding problem: Across the country, fewer people want to work on cars.

Even before COVID-19, enrollment was slipping in automotive technician programs at many community colleges and vocational schools. Many high schools no longer offer automotive shop classes and fewer students seem interested in fixing cars.

One reason, experts say, is that automotive repair often clashes with our evolving attitudes about what counts as a “good” job.

Physically, fixing cars is “is hard on your body,” said Jerry Barkley, owner of Crown Hill Automotive in Seattle.

Yet increasingly, it’s also a job that demands highlevel technical know-how and problem-solving skills, especially as cars have become more computerized. These days, a mechanic is “somebody who is able to analyze data and process that information,” said Amber Avery, a former mechanic who now teaches in Shoreline Community College’s automotive program. Those demands, which help explain why the industry prefers “automotive technician” to “mechanic,” will only intensify as electric drives replace internal combustion engines.

The problem, industry officials say, is that students with the aptitude for today’s automotive technology choose engineering or programming jobs.

A person’s job status isn’t the only barrier. An experienced master automotive technician or collision specialist can indeed earn upward of $100,000 a year. But many entry-level techs will make close to the minimum wage.

The mechanic shortage is expected to worsen as the profession, which now has a disproportionately large share of older workers, starts seeing more retirements.

It’s also certain to spur fiercer competition for talent.