‘Bigger than AI job loss’: Anand Mahindra warns of ‘silent labour emergency’ as Ford CEO, Musk raise red flag

Fear of AI wiping out white-collar jobs may be dominating headlines, but a much more immediate crisis is already reshaping the labour market — the acute shortage of skilled trades. 

Anand Mahindra, Chairman of Mahindra Group, sounded this alarm in a post on X, highlighting what he called a “far bigger crisis” than AI-led displacement: the dramatic scarcity of trained workers in sectors that keep economies functioning. 

Sharing a report that quoted Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley, Mahindra noted that while society debates the future of white-collar work, the present reality is far more urgent. “We’re so busy fearing AI will wipe out white-collar jobs that we’re missing a far bigger crisis: the scarcity of skilled trades,” he wrote. 

Societal imbalance decades in the making 

Mahindra pointed out that the labour gap is rooted in cultural choices. For decades, he said, society pushed degrees and desk jobs to the top of the aspirational ladder while relegating skilled trades to the bottom. The result: a generation steered away from high-value, hands-on vocations. 

Yet, ironically, these are the very roles AI cannot replace — jobs requiring judgment, dexterity, on-the-ground experience and apprenticeship-led mastery. 

“Are we about to witness a reset in what society considers a dream career?” Mahindra asked, suggesting that the winners of the AI era may not be coders or executives, but those who can build, repair and keep the world running. 

Millions of essential roles unfilled 

Farley recently revealed that Ford alone has 5,000 mechanic roles vacant, many offering salaries around $120,000 a year — yet attracting no takers. The problem goes much deeper: across the US, more than one million jobs in plumbing, electrical work, trucking, manufacturing and factory operations remain unfilled. 

Calling it a “serious problem” for the country, Farley warned that this is no longer an industry-specific issue. It is now a national threat affecting manufacturing capacity, emergency services, and essential infrastructure. 

Federal data reinforces his concerns. As of August, over 400,000 manufacturing roles remain open nationwide, even as unemployment ticked up to 4.3 percent — a sign that the crisis stems not from lack of jobs, but from a shrinking pool of trained workers. 

Musk echoes the alarm 

World’s richest person and CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink, Elon Musk, also weighed in on the growing crisis. “America has a major shortage of people who can do challenging physical work or who even wish to train to do so,” Musk wrote on November 17, adding another high-profile voice to the concern. 

New kind of revolution 

In a striking comparison, Mahindra invoked Karl Marx, noting: “Marx imagined workers rising through struggle. He never imagined they’d rise because they became too skilled, too scarce, and too essential to replace.” 

Describing this shift as a “revolution not through violence… but through value-discovery,” Mahindra argued that the increasing scarcity and indispensability of skilled workers could redefine the labour hierarchy globally.