Ford has been unable to fill some 5,000 openings for mechanics despite offering a salary of $120,000 a year — prompting the company’s chief executive to warn of a dire shortage of skilled tradespeople in the US.

“We are in trouble in our country. We are not talking about this enough,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said on an episode of the “Office Hours: Business Edition” podcast published earlier this week.

“We have over a million openings in critical jobs, emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians and tradesmen.”

Farley added: “It’s a very serious thing.”

The $120,000 pay is nearly twice the average annual American salary, according to the Social Security Administration .

It takes about five years to learn the skills needed to pull a diesel engine out of a Fo

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