General Motors CEO Mary Barra says the US has a “societal problem” in how it views skilled trades, arguing that hands-on careers deserve more respect and could offer high school students work that is “a little more AI-proof than some others.”
She told Fortune that high school students should take a harder look at careers such as auto technician and electrician as artificial intelligence threatens to disrupt traditional white-collar work.
“[We need to] really make sure high school students understand this is a great career and frankly maybe a little more AI-proof than some others,” Barra told Fortune’s “Titans and Disruptors of Industry” podcast.
A technician can make $80,000 to $90,000 a year and “potentially even higher, depending on how many hours they work,” the 64-year-old CEO added.
The exec’s remarks came amid a steady stream of worries voiced by business leaders about the shortage of skilled blue collar workers. Ford CEO Jim Farley said in November the company had been unable to fill some 5,000 openings for mechanics despite offering a salary of $120,000 a year.
The US could be short 2.1 million skilled-trades workers by 2030, according to the Alliance for America’s Skilled Trades.
During the recent podcast, Barra pointed to electricians, saying demand for the trade is growing partly because of the buildout of data centers needed for AI.
The US will need an estimated 300,000-plus additional electricians during the next 10 years.
Barra, GM’s CEO since 2014, argued that the US does not give hands-on technical careers the same respect afforded to many office jobs.
“I frankly think this is an area where Europe has much more respect for the trades and the importance of people who do very technical things but work with their hands and build things and make things and service things,” she told Fortune.
Barra’s connection to the trades is personal — her father worked at GM for 39 years as a die maker.
Her own GM career began while she was studying at the General Motors Institute, now Kettering University, when she took a co-op job inspecting quality on a Pontiac assembly line.
She joined GM full time as an electrical engineer in 1985 and was running the automaker’s Detroit Hamtramck assembly plant by 2003.
Barra became CEO in 2014.
“I had that instinct of we work before we play, and we work hard,” she told Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell.
GM has poured nearly $200 million into training and facilities tied to skilled trades and other technical jobs, including advanced manufacturing, engineering and technician positions, Fortune reported.
The investment also covers local training programs and improvements at GM manufacturing facilities, technical centers and dealership service operations.
In April, GM added about 90 apprentices to skilled-trades programs across its US manufacturing divisions.
Other prominent CEOs have also warned that the US lacks enough skilled workers for major industrial and infrastructure projects.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in July that the US needs 300,000 electricians, welders and other workers to build ships over the next five to 10 years.
“It fits what we call the American dream: getting kids skills or all workers’ skills that they have jobs that could pay $80,000, $90,000, $100,000 a year after you know a year or two of training,” Dimon said while speaking from the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has also warned that AI could disrupt the long-established path from a college education to a white-collar job.
“The speed at which AI is changing, we’re not adapting our society fast enough,” Fink said at BlackRock’s 2026 Infrastructure Summit in March.
“AI is going to create a lot of skilled job needs,” Fink added. “And the biggest issue confronting our country today and other countries is the speed at which this change is occurring.”