A high school in Huntsville, Alabama, is reportedly preparing students for skilled trade jobs that industry leaders say are less likely to be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI). According to a report by Fortune, the Huntsville Center for Technology (HCT) has partnered with Toyota Alabama to train students for industrial maintenance and engineering careers that can pay more than $40 an hour. This development comes as CEOs of BlackRock, Lowe, and Ford have warned about a shortage of skilled workers in the United States.
Toyota Gives $1 Million to Train Students
The HCT is a $40 million facility where around 700 students leave their regular high schools during part of the day to receive technical training. One of its main programs, called Inditech, has been created in partnership with Toyota Alabama after the company identified a shortage of industrial maintenance workers.
“We asked what is a specific program or pathway that you guys need and we can address,” principal Zac Mcwhorter told Fortune. “They said they needed more industrial maintenance workers. So the Inditech program came about through the collaboration with Toyota Alabama.”
As per the report, Toyota supports the Inditech program with a $1 million investment through its charitable foundation. Instructor Jack Crowley said students are attracted by the strong salaries and lower education costs compared to many white-collar careers.
“You’d be making over $40 an hour, for which with little to no student debt, is a very good proposition for income at an early stage,” Crowley said.
Toyota Alabama corporate communications analyst Sydney Martin said students became more interested after hearing about young workers achieving financial stability early in their careers.
“When they started hearing that we have a 21- or 22-year-old team member who had gotten married, bought a house, had a car, has a boat, you could just see their eyes lighting up about the potential of this type of career,” Martin told Fortune.
What Lowe, BlackRock, and Other CEOs Have Warned Of
Ford CEO Jim Farley has previously said the US is short of more than a million workers in blue-collar sectors that get things “moved, built, or fixed.” Calling it the “essential economy,” Farley said the country is short 600,000 factory workers and 500,000 construction workers.
Similarly, Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison has warned that while AI can write your emails, it cannot fix your roof. The company has committed $250 million through its foundation over the next 10 years to train workers in plumbing, carpentry, and electrical trades.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has long warned that the shortage of skilled trade workers, especially electricians, could become a serious concern in the AI era. “I’ve even told members of the Trump team that we’re going to run out of electricians that we need to build out AI data centers,” Fink said in 2025 at CERAWeek, an energy conference hosted in Houston. “We just don’t have enough.” The company has committed $100 million to training plumbers, electricians, and HVAC technicians in the US.
