The Ford skilled trades report projects about 1.7 million job openings a year in the United States through 2035. The Alliance for America’s Skilled Trades says training programs currently produce 55 workers for every 100 needed. That gap between expected demand and the training pipeline is the report’s central finding.
The State of America’s Skilled Trades examines 124 occupations across all 50 states. The alliance said the estimate includes jobs created as industries grow and positions that open when workers leave. It is a projection of annual openings, not a count of current vacancies.
Ford announced the report on Sept. 30, as the alliance added 14 members, including AT&T, Blackstone, Cintas, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Waymo. The group began in July with BlackRock, Carhartt, Ford and Google. Its expanded membership spans technology, construction, telecommunications, manufacturing and workforce services.
Fortune reported that roughly 600,000 of the projected annual openings would be net-new jobs in areas such as artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and energy. The rest are tied to replacement needs and other growth. That split matters: the headline figure does not mean that 1.7 million entirely new positions will be created each year.
The report identifies nine states where demand is expected to outpace supply: Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. It also projects that 86 of the 124 occupations will add jobs or hold steady through 2035. Electricians, heating and cooling technicians, and industrial machinery mechanics are among the roles with growth projections above the average for all occupations.
Training completion is another constraint. The alliance says only about half of people who enroll in skilled-trades programs finish. It points to barriers such as transportation, child care and the need to earn a paycheck while studying. By contrast, the report says high-quality apprenticeship programs can exceed a 90% completion rate.
The group has also launched a public dashboard with more than 5,000 state- and occupation-specific profiles. Employers, educators and workforce organizations can use it to compare projected needs by location and trade. The tool provides detail that a single national estimate cannot, though the figures remain projections rather than guarantees of hiring by any one company.
Ford frames the report as a resource for planning training and investment. The announcement does not set a hiring quota for alliance members. Its finding is narrower: projected demand exceeds current training output, while completion rates leave another gap between enrollment and entry into the job market.
Ford’s Sept. 30 announcement details the report and new members. Fortune’s Sept. 30 coverage separately reported the estimate for net-new positions in AI, advanced manufacturing and energy.
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