Opinion

Want to strengthen America's economy? The key investment is hiding in plain sight

Supply of technicians meets just 42% of demand across automotive, aviation and HVAC sectors

By Jennifer Maher Fox News

Published August 20, 2026 7:00am EDT

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Picture the morning your technicians don’t show up. Your flight never leaves the gate because there is no one to solve the maintenance issue. Your car sits in the shop for three weeks because the service bay has a lift and the necessary tools, but no one is there to utilize any of it. A factory line goes down and stays down. The trucks behind it don’t roll, the supply chain stalls, the packages never arrive. A data center overheats. A fire truck won’t start.

None of that is hypothetical. It’s the direction we’re heading. The U.S. economy faces a massive shortage of skilled technical talent. Across 10 critical sectors (like automotive, aviation and HVAC), industry supply meets barely 42% of the total demand. This tech shortage drains $7.42 billion in wage-based economic output from the U.S. economy every single year.

What makes this shortage so puzzling is that America is talking about the skilled trades.

INNOVATION IS KEY TO AMERICA STAYING A SUPERPOWER. BUT IT IS MISSING AN ESSENTIAL PIECE

Skilled technicians are exactly the high-skill, high-wage, in-demand jobs Americans increasingly say they want, and that employers, policymakers and philanthropists increasingly say they want to support. Most open jobs start at $50,000 to $80,000, require no four-year degree, and pay at or above the national median. The top techs can clear six figures. A modern vehicle is a computer on wheels. A modern aircraft is a data center with wings.

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