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Bonus Episode: Jim Farley & Mike Rowe on the Essential Economy
Bonus Episode: Jim Farley & Mike Rowe on the Essential Economy
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About this episode
Jim Farley and Mike Rowe dig into the “essential economy”—the jobs and systems that shape what gets built, moved, and fixed—and why shortages show up as higher costs and longer wait times. They connect COVID-era attention to essential work with initiatives like Dirty Jobs and MicroWorks, then get practical about training pipelines, trade schools, and rebuilding “shop class.” The conversation also touches leadership, public trust, and how brand storytelling takes the long road.
In this bonus episode of DRIVE, Ford CEO Jim Farley continues his conversation with Mike Rowe about the “essential economy” and why America is increasingly vulnerable due to shortages of construction, industrial, emergency services, and skilled trade workers. Rowe explains how COVID re-highlighted essential workers, how his MikeRoweWORKS foundation began amid the 2009 recession despite millions of open jobs, and why shortages become real to people only when repairs and services fail. Mike and Jim discuss the need to rebuild respect for skilled work through trade schools, scholarships, apprenticeships, and company-led training.
00:00 Leadership That Pivots
00:21 Why the Essential Economy Matters
01:26 America’s Skilled-Worker Vulnerability
04:11 The Skill Gap Nobody Saw
05:39 When Shortages Hit Home
11:09 Trade Schools
12:33 Brand Beyond Features
13:17 Future Proofing and AI
15:29 Manufacturing Jobs Gap
18:48 Teaching Hands On Skills
23:53 Let Customers Speak
DRIVE with Jim Farley is produced by Jesse Baker and Eric Nuzum of Magnificent Noise. Our production staff includes Sabrina Farhi and Kristen Mueller with help from Lori Arpin, Angela Brewer, Max Owen-Dunow, Anne Roberts, Samantha Singhal, Darnell Macon, Brandon Kennedy, and Mark Truby.
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Brand
Ford
"And look, it's really hard for companies [736.1s] like Caterpillar and Ford, [738.2s] and I've worked for a bunch of them"
Ford is a major car company. Here, they’re talking about how the company sells more than just car features—it also sells its bigger story and identity.
Ford is an American automaker whose brand identity is strongly tied to its manufacturing and cultural story. In this segment, the hosts use Ford as an example of how companies build a narrative beyond product specs.
Concept
features and benefits
"But you need fans of your brand [750.6s] who are out there saying, [752.3s] you know what, it's not just features and benefits. [755.5s] Yeah, the e-cars is great."
“Features and benefits” is marketing language for listing what a product has (features) and what those things do for the buyer (benefits). The hosts contrast it with longer-term brand-building, implying that specs alone don’t create lasting customer loyalty.
Brand
e-cars
"you know what, it's not just features and benefits. [755.5s] Yeah, the e-cars is great. [757.6s] Yes, this, that and the other."
“E-cars” is a shorthand for electric cars, used here as part of the broader “features and benefits” sales pitch. The segment suggests that even when electric vehicles are a strong product point, the brand story still matters.
Brand
blue oval
"The long road is like polishing that blue oval [774.3s] every so often and reminding people that,"
The “blue oval” is Ford’s logo. In the conversation, it means keeping Ford’s brand image and history in people’s minds while selling cars.
“Blue oval” is a nickname for Ford’s logo, which is a blue oval containing the Ford name. The phrase is used here as shorthand for Ford’s brand presence and heritage, not a specific vehicle part.
Leadership That Pivots
Why the Essential Economy Matters
America’s Skilled-Worker Vulnerability
The Skill Gap Nobody Saw
When Shortages Hit Home
Trade Schools
Brand Beyond Features
Future Proofing and AI
Manufacturing Jobs Gap
Teaching Hands On Skills
Let Customers Speak
Select text to request an explanation
But I think that things are changing real fast
and people understand that and they want to see
how real leadership is pivoting.
And there's no sin in changing your mind.
The sin is in seeing a thing that demands a verdict
and not passing a judgment on it.
I'm Jim Farley and this is Drive.
I hope you enjoyed this week's Drive episode with Mike Rowe.
There's so much more to the conversation
that I wanted to share with you.
It's about the invisible backbone of our country,
the essential economy.
This is the engine that shapes everything we build,
move and fix at Ford.
The essential economy isn't without its many challenges,
stagnant productivity, worker shortages
and regulatory hurdles.
So why does this matter to us?
Because problems in this vital sector impact all of us
with higher costs, longer wait times
and fewer opportunities.
Addressing these issues isn't just good for the economy.
It's good for our future,
creating more opportunities for everyone.
So I think you're the perfect person
of all the things I wanted to,
I look forward to talking to you today.
This is probably like the top,
which is I don't think people in America understand yet,
but hopefully after listening to you,
they will do a better job understanding
of how vulnerable are what they take for granted
is in America relative to our shortage of construction,
workers, industrial workers, emergency services,
workers, tradesmen, we are in a really vulnerable place.
I would argue the most vulnerable we've ever been.
And you're the perfect person to talk to
about this problem we have as a country
that we have to get serious about.
And I guess my first question related to that would be,
Mike, how would you put or how do you put
this essential economy problem we have as a country
in terms where someone isn't freaked out about it,
it should be or worried about it.
So like how do you think that problem will manifest itself
to the indifferent person who has a comfortable life
in America and doesn't really consider
how things get done in their life, but they should
because it's going to get bad.
Well, it has to go splat, unfortunately.
Many things do in the course of a correction.
And what we need is a correction.
There weren't a lot of silver linings to COVID,
but one of them was a reminder of where our bread was buttered
and who was doing the buttering.
And the essential economy, the essential worker
began to reemerge during the lockdowns.
And that opened up a really interesting conversation.
I got thousands of letters from people reminding me
that dirty jobs was the original love letter
to those vocations, why wouldn't we reboot it?
And so we did, but we did a lot of other things too.
My foundation, MicroWorks, evolved very organically
out of dirty jobs back on Labor Day of 2008.
And that happened in part, this was a very different
environment, but just real quick
so your listeners understand what was happening
that we were entering a recession in 2009.
And I was at the dirty jobs at the height of its popularity.
And I was living in hotels going all over the country
doing these jobs and every morning I'd get up
and I'd look at, I'd see another headline
and it was always about unemployment.
It was always about the number of people who weren't working.
And from 789 10 up to 11.5, 12%.
But everywhere we were going, not everywhere,
but most places on dirty jobs.
I was seeing help wanted signs.
And so there was this narrative, it seemed,
in the country that no one was paying attention to
and that was rooted in the existence of, at the time,
2.3 million open positions that no one seemed
to give a damn about.
So I started MicroWorks simply as an ad hoc PR campaign
for a few million good jobs, dirty jobs,
but jobs that required training and skill.
And just kind of took it upon myself to go to Congress
and start being noisy about the fact
that even though 12 million people were out of work,
we've got a few million good jobs.
Was it a skill gap?
Was it a will gap?
Like what was the problem?
So that's how this started.
And to answer your question, in those days,
the whole conversation about re-skilling
had to do with the fact that you had a bunch of people
who needed the skills and a bunch of companies
who needed the people.
So why couldn't these two groups?
Right, but your question is important
because it talks about the 300 million other people
who are typically not a part of the conversation.
And those people don't care about a shortage of plumbers
until their toilet doesn't flush.
And then the question becomes, how long?
How long do you wait?
You know, a day, an hour, a week,
you flick the switch and the light doesn't come on.
How long do you wait for the electrician?
So that has started to happen.
And people are starting to say, well, wait a second,
especially with the lockdown, right?
I mean, we can't have this conversation
without the fiber optics in the ground.
And suddenly you realize,
my whole business for a couple of years
was down to a fiber OPTIQ line.
And I didn't even know the guy
who was responsible for maintaining it.
And so what has to happen in general, I believe,
is we have to get reconnected as a country
to that part of the workforce
upon which we rely most profoundly.
And that's a hard thing to do
because there's some fault in our stars
that leads us to resent
that which we rely upon, right?
Like when I see someone who's incredibly gifted,
maybe an electrician and let's say I need one.
Yes.
Well, what's going on with me?
Like why am I angry that I'm waiting?
Why do I feel put upon?
Why am I upset with the shortage of electricians?
The macro economist in me would say, well,
because a healthy economy can't have this shortage,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
but really what's going on with me
is that I hate the fact
that I can't fix this damn thing myself.
Myself, yeah.
I hate that.
I've become, I'm not competent the way I wish I was.
And the very competence that exists within the electrician
is a reminder of my own shortcoming.
And so I start to resent that guy
and I wanna keep him at a distance.
I really don't wanna hear about his problems,
or his dreams, or his hopes, or his frustrations, right?
So I wrote a book years ago called Profoundly Disconnected
and it was really a rumination on my own weird journey
of being a kid and being utterly gobsmacked
by my granddad's ability to fix or repair anything
to this 40 year old in Hollywood
who had become not maliciously indifferent,
but just, I just lost my wonder
for where my food came from
and where my energy came from.
I see, I see.
And that happens.
Like it's not a, it happens to everyone.
So Dirty Jobs reconnected me on a very personal level
to all the things in my life that I really depend on
but can't do for myself.
And Micro Works was an attempt to tell that story
through something a bit more philanthropic.
Thank you for explaining your perspective
on this journey for you.
And I think, what's more valuable in life
than learning and evolving?
You know, I usually ask this question
at the end of the interview,
but I wanna ask it to you now.
If you were a head of Ford,
what do you think I should be doing?
I wanna walk the walk.
We need to, we need to solve this.
Trade schools, scholarships, apprentice programs,
what advice would you give me as the head of Ford
to solve this problem?
Aggressive transparency,
which it sounds like you're already doing.
I would say that the American people, by and large,
are still a weirdly forgiving bunch.
And it's not about pandering,
it's not about nothing worse than an unwarranted apology
or an unnecessary one.
But I think that things are changing real fast
and people understand that.
And they wanna see how real leadership is pivoting.
And there's no sin in changing your mind.
The sin is in seeing a thing that demands a verdict
and not passing a judgment on it.
So, I think you're a wonderful leader
in the sense that you will take the submissive posture
when it makes sense to take it.
You seem to know that you don't have a company
without the people you're describing.
So, there's no shame and self-interest either.
I mean, Henry Ford was brilliant
in that he turned his employees into satisfied customers.
Because he was in the business of making a product
that he was determined his employees could afford.
What a concept, what a simple, beautiful concept.
Is it still for sale?
I think it is.
I think the idea of building internal trade schools
is an absolute part of the riddle.
Because getting shop class back in high school, Jim,
that's the poop back in the goose.
That's tough.
They're not, the infrastructure's not right.
You know, I've helped open a few trade schools
that are built right next to high schools.
Those, that makes sense.
But really, I mean, who's got the most skin
in the manufacturing game?
It's guys like you.
So, do you wait for the feds?
Do you wait for the local school board?
Do you wait for some municipality
to give you permission to train the people
that you're most reliant upon?
And then, since you asked,
I would say that you have to weave that in
to the 2026 narrative of your company.
And look, it's really hard for companies
like Caterpillar and Ford,
and I've worked for a bunch of them
to tell their own story without doing this, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Nobody needs to see you take a victory lap
or pat yourself on the back.
But you need fans of your brand
who are out there saying,
you know what, it's not just features and benefits.
Yeah, the e-cars is great.
Yes, this, that and the other.
I used to have this conversation
with Team Detroit all the time around the advertising.
It's like features and benefits
are the short road to selling a product.
The long road is like polishing that blue oval
every so often and reminding people that,
look, this is way more than a widget-making factory.
These are people.
This is our country.
That's the truth in our company.
That's exactly what Henry Ford did and would do.
So thank you for that advice.
I'll take it and it makes a lot of sense to me.
And tell me a little bit about future-proofing work.
You know, we hear a lot about AI now
and automation and robotics
and we all want progress in our life.
I mean, I look at my kids and social media
and it all look fine and then, you know,
and then it wasn't fine.
And I was curious what your view is
of all this technology that could really, you know,
supplement and automate a lot of jobs.
And I wonder what you've learned over your life
and how you approach or think through these technologies
that are both helpful and hurtful to our society.
Yeah.
There's a great quote from my favorite fictitious character
called Travis McGee, who says,
be wary of all earnestness.
And, you know, as a sincere guy,
I always kind of struggle with it.
But it's the earnestness and the certainty
with which modern day prognosticators weigh in
with such a plea.
I danger Will Robinson, warning.
Nobody has a crystal ball.
And it just, it kills me to see people
out there talking like they do.
It was like the word guarantee,
that this is kind of adjacent,
but anything with guarantee in it is a trap in my view.
And so when you talk about how do we safeguard
or how do we guarantee a future for blue collar
or white collar, my honest answer is I do not know.
And I do not think there is such a thing.
But I also believe, I mean, it's a pandemic lesson,
but who pivots first?
Who sees it and who's nimble enough to go, you know what?
I was pretty sure we were going over there,
but we're not going over there.
We're gonna go over here.
And you know, who's that somehow or another,
I was at this AI conference in Pittsburgh,
this energy AI summit.
I sat there in the room, President was there
and 35 CEOs, mostly tech companies all over the country.
They pledged $92 billion in the room for Pennsylvania,
data center, reconstruction, energy reinvigoration.
These things are basically AI factories,
but they all get it and they all know the stakes are high
and everybody's trying to figure out the money's there, Jim.
And like there's a vision there.
And I realized then why I had been invited to this thing.
I'm the guy in the back of the room who raises his hand
and says, look, I'm rooting for the president
in this reinvigoration of our trades,
this reshoring, this reindustrialization.
He wants to create 2000000 jobs in manufacturing
and I'm rooting for him.
But does anybody wanna talk about the fact
that there are 500,000 openings in manufacturing right now?
Does anybody wanna talk about that?
Because, spoiler alert, I've seen this song before.
You know, in 09, I was rooting for Obama
when he had his Highway Infrastructure Act
and announced somewhat breezily, I thought,
the creation of 3000000 shovel-ready jobs.
And I wrote a very public open letter to the president
and I said, I'm rooting for you, but not for nothing.
In my little foundation, and if Dirty Jobs told me
anything at all, it's that selling a shovel-ready job
to a country that doesn't wanna pick up a shovel
is gonna be tough.
There you go.
And the business of creating jobs is different
than the business of creating enthusiasm for jobs.
So, you know, I hate to be a Debbie Downer
about all of it, but that's where we are.
Your whole rap on the essential economy
is really rooted in 7.4 million open positions right now
and 7000000 able-bodied men
who for whatever reason are not only not working
but not looking for work.
That's never happened in peacetime before.
So there's something else going on in our country
and you can talk about $1.7 trillion in student debt
and the fact that we're still telling a whole generation
of kids that they're screwed without a four-year degree.
And you can talk about the unintended consequences
of taking shop class out of high school,
which just unleashed the kraken in my view.
But all of it feels like it's coming together.
I'm preaching to the choir with you
and probably to the people who listen to this,
but it feels like a memo has gone out
to governors and C-sweets saying, this is getting real.
And your earlier question, what do we do
to get the average person focused on the stakes?
That question's being asked from sea to shining sea.
And I'm so glad to hear that.
And to your point, to make it personal,
my kid's 17, has everything he ever needed.
But this summer, he said, Dad, what should I do?
I said, I want you to go down to North Carolina.
I want you to learn how to use your hands.
I want you to learn how to weld and fabricate.
He's like, well, okay, you think that's important?
And I literally saw this kid go from just
another high school kid to having confidence
that I never saw before because of the simple satisfaction
of doing a weld halfway decently,
that someone in the 50s would say,
now you know how to weld well.
And his whole generation,
he never had that kind of satisfaction before.
And I see in him almost like a completely different level
of confidence from the simple satisfaction
of doing a job well, just like you were watching
your dad and your grandpa get wood,
chop it the right way, back up the trailer the right way.
I don't know how to build that appreciation
for that again in our country where everyone thinks
you have to go to Harvard or to be an entrepreneur
and be a billionaire to be worth anything
or famous to be worth anything.
I don't know, but it seems like we as leaders
have to point out that there's more to life
than those things and that to raise,
to get our country back on track,
it's not enough to be ambitious about the jobs.
We have to actually, as leaders,
put things in place to build that appreciation
for building something that I saw in my kid this summer
that I know is in your heart
from the earliest days you can remember.
And is there any other advice in that regard
that you would give me as a head of Ford?
I would not presume.
Dorothy Parker said advice is that thing we ask for
that we secretly hope we don't hear
because we already know.
I mean look, I hadn't heard that, that's good.
And Travis McGee said in all moments of ambiguity
and uncertainty, the difficult thing
is almost always the right thing.
It's going to be hard.
You're talking about changing attitudes.
We're talking about confronting, on the one hand,
stigmas and stereotypes and myths and misperceptions
that have kept a whole generation of kids
from exploring that opportunity you described before
that exists at Ford, 130 grand a year
working on heavy equipment, it's there.
It's there and there's a path to that job
and it's short and it's intense, but it's there.
So I spend a lot of time thinking about what's persuasive
and that too is a moving target.
I'm not 42 anymore, I'm older than I've ever been
and I don't know how persuasive I am
to your son, for instance, who's trying
to get an honest bead on what meaningful work is.
So what I've learned, and I don't know
if there's a corollary in it for your company,
but early on in micro works, I spent most of my time
talking anecdotally about things I'd seen
and people I'd met and lessons I'd learned
and that moved the needle, because I can tell a story,
but what I learned now that we're 17 and I can go back
and I can call somebody, I gave $7,000
to eight years ago to get a welding certificate
and when I ask that guy, hey, how's it going?
And he says, Mike, I'll tell you how it's gone.
I welded for a year and a half in a moline
and then I took an advanced course
and then I learned to underwater weld
and I just got back from the Gulf of Oman
where I spent the last two years
making $340,000 a year tax-free.
I now have $900,000 in the bank, my first kid's on the way
and I don't have a penny a debt.
Now, when America sees that 28-year-old guy
tell me that story and when I can get that exchange
blasted out into the ether,
that's persuasive in a whole different way.
So look, at the risk of overstepping,
I would just say what I said to the folks at Ford in 2008.
You don't need a spokesman
because you have millions of satisfied customers.
You don't need a spokesman
because you have employees who are dedicated
to the idea of your company.
You need a fan of your brand to be out there
on your behalf, getting your employees
and your satisfied customers to talk with the same level
of passion and enthusiasm that you have.
And if that's not realistic, well, at least get close to it.
Because it's like the deadliest catch analogy,
that people won't look at your company
and immediately relate to the CEO,
but they will relate to a happy or a sad customer
and they will relate to an engaged or disgruntled worker.
And if you're willing to put all of that on display,
warts and all, the good, the bad and the ugly,
then my guess is you'll be doing something
your competitors aren't, and that's almost always good.
Mike, this has been one of the most rewarding
conversations I've had because I'm gonna listen to you.
I'm gonna listen to everyone and we're gonna get busy
and I'm gonna put money behind this initiative
at the company.
Thank you so much for the time.
That's the most valuable thing.
And Mike, thanks for being such a big part
of all of our lives, for highlighting the dignity of work.
I really appreciate this time together with you.
I'm very thankful.
I hope you have a great day, Mike.
I already did.
Thanks to you, Jim.
I look forward to seeing you in person.
Okay.
Adios. Take care, buddy.
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