Inside GM’s $242M push to rebuild America’s skilled trades workforce

The skilled trades workforce, critical to keeping the country's infrastructure and economy running, is rapidly declining.

While many companies are working to address the shortage, General Motors has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build its own pipeline of future workers.

Over the past five years alone, the automaker has invested more than $242 million in its skilled trades apprenticeship program, which is geared toward training the next generation of skilled trade professionals with a combination of classroom instruction and thousands of hours of hands-on experience at a GM facility, Michael Trevorrow, GM's senior vice president of global manufacturing, told FOX Business.

Apprentices will go through up to 672 hours of related technical instruction in a classroom setting and approximately 7,920 hours of on-the-job training with an assigned qualified skilled trades person. Focus areas of the program include a diemaker, electrician, experimental assembler inspector, experimental laboratory paint technician, millwright, metal model maker, wood model maker, pattern maker, pipefitter, toolmaker and machine repairer.   

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In fact, the apprenticeship program is where Trevorrow got his start in the industry. The executive worked his way from a diemaker apprentice to overseeing all of GM’s manufacturing operations worldwide. Many others are following in his footsteps, with 600 apprentices graduating from the program each year, according to Trevorrow.

At the end of the course, participants will earn a journeyperson card, which is an official credential that proves someone has completed an apprenticeship and is now fully qualified to work in a skilled trade without direct supervision. Veterans who enter the program may be able to complete the program in a shorter amount of time given their prior knowledge. 

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Not only are participants starting with hands-on and schooling simultaneously, but they're also getting paid, Trevorrow said. 

"It's an investment in the future," Trevorrow said. "It isn't what you need tomorrow. It's kind of what you forecast you're going to need over the next 10 years." 

It comes at a time when the U.S. is struggling to build up the skilled labor workforce. Part of the problem is that there is a surge of workers set to retire and not enough young workers are replacing them.

Georgetown University in September published a report, "Falling Behind: How Skills Shortages Threaten Future Jobs," highlighting the persistent skills shortages in critical occupations across the U.S. economy due to an unmet demand for workers with the postsecondary credentials associated with the necessary skills. 

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From 2024 through 2032, about 18.4 million experienced workers with postsecondary education are projected to retire. This outpaces the 13.8 million younger workers who will enter the labor market with equivalent educational qualifications, according to the report. 

The U.S. economy is expected to add 685,000 new jobs requiring postsecondary education and training over the same period. 

The National Association of Manufacturers, The Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte estimated in a 2021 report that the country's manufacturing skills gap could lead to 2.1 million unfilled jobs by 2030, costing the economy potentially $1 trillion.

"Given the foundational role the manufacturing sector plays in our nation’s economy, it is deeply concerning that at a time when jobs are in such high demand nationwide, the number of vacant entry-level manufacturing positions continues to grow," Paul Wellener, then-Deloitte vice chairman and U.S. industrial products and construction leader, said in the 2021 study. 

But General Motors isn't just targeting adults or veterans leaving the armed forces. A big part of its effort is exposing younger generations to this type of work. Volunteers with General Motors will go into their communities and introduce kids between the ages of kindergarten and 12th grade to the wide range of career paths available in automotive manufacturing.

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This includes bringing groups of students through its plants to show them what modern manufacturing looks like or, as Trevorrow describes it, thousands of robots "working like a symphony." GM employees also visit schools to help students with engineering projects, including building model cars.

The goal is to teach them about quality, standardized work, standardized processes and problem-solving, according to Trevorrow.

General Motors is also upskilling its current workforce through its Technical Learning University. It trains about 2,500 employees per year. 

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The Technical Learning University is set up so that workers can try out new technologies in a hands-on way. The training center includes real systems that match what employees use in plants, so they can practice in a safe learning environment. GM brings people from plants all over North America to a facility with a subject-matter expert, who will walk through the process.

"As technology improves, we try to upscale everybody to that new technology so that we can take advantage of it and use it to build more quality in our vehicles, do it more efficiently, which ends up good for the customer," Trevorrow said.