With the shortage of technicians rising to 800,000 in 2025, the gap is bigger than ever before. Many different organizations throughout the automotive industry are rising to meet this concerning problem and one of them is NAPA. To address this important issue, Ratchet+Wrench sat down with Cassie Bell, the senior vice president of people at NAPA, to find out more about the technician shortage and what NAPA is doing to support its younger generation of automotive technicians.
Q: The technician shortage is affecting the entire industry—how is NAPA approaching this challenge from a people perspective?
Bell: The technician shortage impacts quite a bit of our segment from the automotive perspective, whether it's our Auto Care centers — which are our primary customer and our owners — or our stores that sell into that, or just you and I as car owners. The shortage itself has been going on for many years, and from a NAPA perspective, we're doing a lot of things that really lean in and help close that gap. We’re trying to get to students earlier by providing scholarships and exposure and communications about careers in the field. It's quite a collaborative effort.
Q: Can you offer more details about how NAPA is exposing the newer generation to career opportunities in the automotive industry?
Bell: We've got several things that we're doing. Our initiative for middle schools is really around education. Students start to enter shop classes during that time frame. And we try to ensure that there's a presence from the automotive industry and that the students understand what an automotive career path could look like for them.
Then when they get further into high school, we see it getting more serious and we try to help them get training as technicians and help to support by offering pop up technical training inside some high schools. Post high school, there's a lot of people out there that are looking for a different job or are not sure what they want to do. We try to ensure that we are providing scholarships or grants that allow students to go into tech vocational training.
Q: How do you think the evolving nature of automotive technology is helping to attract a new kind of student—someone who might not have considered a trade career in the past?
Bell: I think we're seeing more and more students that want to do something with their hands again. They don't want it to all be about this four-year college. They want to be able to find value in that. But at the same time, the parts they're working on, the electronics, the ADAS systems, you're not really getting as dirty there. So, it's a little bit of a hybrid blend for both groups of people.
Q: What do you think makes this generation of technicians uniquely suited to thrive in an ever-changing environment?
The kids are getting into the technician world, and they're staying in that role, because there's new and exciting things that are constantly coming. I think, for a good period, although there was some innovation in vehicles worldwide, it was a bit stagnant. And because of that, there wasn’t anything new.
Now, what we're seeing is the automotive market is exploding. There's constantly something changing. Just last year they started to roll out different innovations. What you can do with AI on your car, which you couldn't do a year ago. So that's creating this cool environment for young technicians. They constantly get to learn new things, and that’s really motivating for young people because they want to learn, they want to experience growth.
Q: How do you see the perception of skilled trades changing, especially in comparison to a four-year degree?
Bell: Our younger population is killing the stereotypes. They're not thinking about people's color or gender differentiation, or even the aspect of, “this is what my family did, or my family didn't do.” They're breaking down all those barriers, and I think that they're going into these more non-traditional skill trades because of that. They're not stagnated or protected from it. And I think that's huge, and it makes me so proud of our younger generation. How they're engaging very differently.
So, when I think about the problem of the technician shortage, that inspires me. Because young people can see something very different for our future. And I think it's helpful. We can do something different. I think we’re also seeing perceptions changing. People can't afford the four-year degree, or don't want to afford the four-year degree, and want to do something different. And I think as we reshape that expectation a bit, we'll start to see that idea diverging. That some people want that four-year education, but we can also be just as valuable without it.
