GM invests nearly $200 million to grow its own skilled trades and manufacturing workforce

Nearly $200 million divided by the roughly 90 skilled trades apprentices GM placed across its US manufacturing divisions in April comes to about $2.2 million a head ^[2], well past the price of an apprenticeship. GM's description of the spending puts community-based training next to upgrades of manufacturing facilities, technical centers and dealership service bays ^[8], and Fortune's account does not separate the two.

The 2.1 million figure is an estimate from the Alliance for America's Skilled Trades, a coalition formed over the summer by BlackRock, Carhartt, Ford Motor Company and Google ^[4][5]. All four either hire trades labour or build the things that need it. Divide nearly $200 million by 2.1 million vacancies and you get about $95 apiece ^[1]. GM is spending on its own plants and dealers and the 2.1 million is a national count, so the two figures were never built to meet. But the pitch puts both in the same interview, so the division gets done anyway.

Electricians are the tightest part of the story. Barra tied the demand to the data center boom, and the estimate she pointed to is more than 300,000 new electricians over the next decade ^[6], about 30,000 a year ^[3]. Dimon attached the same number to different work. "We need 300,000 electricians, welders, etc. to build ships in the next five or 10 years," he said in July at the Philadelphia Navy Yard ^[12].

The recruiting pitch runs on pay. "Potentially even higher, depending on how many hours they work," Barra said of a technician's $80,000 to $90,000 ^[3]. Getting from that band to six figures takes another $10,000 to $20,000 ^[4], and overtime is the stated route. Dimon put a similar band on a training timeline: "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. This lifts up America. It helps build the defense industry," he added ^[13].

"[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 said ^[2]. In my view the demand claim is stronger than the AI claim: licensed electricians are a physical constraint on data center construction, and a first cohort of 90 apprentices does not relieve it. If Fink is right that "The speed at which AI is changing, we're not adapting our society fast enough" ^[14], displaced office workers retrain into the trades faster than the 2030 forecast assumes, and the wage premium in the pitch narrows. And if GM discloses that most of the nearly $200 million went to training and not to facilities, and April's 90 becomes a yearly intake in the hundreds, the case that this is mostly capital spending with a workforce label fails.