Automotive Careers & Education

“We could hire 20 to 30 auto techs immediately. Every store needs techs,” said Charlie Gilchrist, local car dealer, past chairman of NADA, and current chairman of the North Texas Automobile Dealers. “Every dealer I talk to is in the same situation. The industry is facing a critical shortage of service technicians.”

High-paying, meaningful jobs at car dealerships exist in every community in America. These careers offer responsible individuals competitive salaries, great benefits, and excellent opportunities for advancement. Demand for employees is high, which translates to job security. Many jobs are high-tech and challenging as well as rewarding. Today’s automotive and truck dealerships provide excellent compensation, a variety of employee benefits, and a modern, clean, and safe environment to work in. Automotive dealership careers include sales and service management, sales positions, bookkeeping, office management, administrative support, finance and insurance experts, inventory control personnel, and auto technicians just to name a few.

According to the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), Texas ranks second in the country in the number of dealership jobs, and third in total number of training facilities/vocational schools available to prospective automotive technologists. Many of these facilities are in our own North Texas backyard.

About 39,000 new service techs graduate from U.S. career technical colleges and training programs each year. Yet the industry needs to replace nearly 76,000 techs each year to keep up with retirements and new job demands. That leaves an annual shortfall of about 37,000 trained techs, NADA estimates.

In addition to a competitive salary, many auto and truck technicians enjoy merit-based bonuses, retirement plans, health care coverage, life insurance, opportunities for advancement and other benefits.

The NTXAD is responding to this demand by joining forces with educators, state and local government, and local businesses to train, certify and employ students to work in the automotive industry in the DFW area.