Automakers desperately need new workers — with new skills — to build electric cars

• Automakers and battery companies are desperate for talent to make their EV ambitions a reality.
• They're looking for lots of workers — and the current automotive workforce can leverage its skills.

An ongoing battery supply crunch could inhibit the auto industry's transition to all-electric vehicle lineups. But equally as pressing as getting the materials necessary for EVs is the talent crisis the business is facing. That could be good news for workers hoping to tap into today's opportunities.

Auto- and battery-makers are desperate for new kinds of workers — and they're willing to pay for it. But a sense of urgency and willingness to invest doesn't mean any type of talent will do.

The industry has very specific needs as billions of dollars of investment flow to EV powertrains. That means workers with skills in construction, manufacturing, and engineering, especially those willing to be flexible, could see plenty of opportunities, experts say.

What's in demand?

Engineers, chemists, and supply chain experts are at the top of the list. After all, mining raw materials, processing them, and eventually getting them into batteries is pretty new for the auto world.

But first, the industry needs factories to build those batteries — and workers to construct them.

With every new announcement comes job opportunities, though they may require workers to be flexible location-wise, according to Andreas Breiter, an automotive-focused partner at McKinsey.

"What the industry is doing here is putting measures in place to attract more talent — either more talent to enter into that field of construction or just moving crews across the country from areas where more talent is available to areas where the bottleneck is," Breiter said. "The other thing I think, is also just using the talent more efficiently.

"That just needs some planning, so ahead of time, starting to work in the local communities to build up the infrastructure, to build up the labor pool," Breiter added. "For some large factories, that will also mean that probably, people will just move to that area."

Does this mean my current skills aren't needed?

Electric vehicles are notably less complex to build and maintain than gas-powered cars. As a result, questions about the current automotive workforce and whether today's skills will become obsolete come into play, Chris McCarthy, VP and global transportation lead at North Highland, a management consulting firm, told Insider.

"What happens to that skill? You're not going to necessarily take somebody that's working on an assembly line and now you need software production experts," McCarthy said. "That's not realistic. So what are those bridges going to be?"

A few solutions have come into play.

"A lot of the discussion that we've heard is around the reskilling and upskilling," Diana Páez, an energy and mobility researcher at the University of Michigan, said. "But also thinking about the talent pipeline and how fast can you get people with the right skills to the factory floors or manufacturing plant."

That means capitalizing on existing skill sets, bolstering workers with new ones, and fostering a brand-new workforce.

Leveraging today's opportunities

Automakers and their battery companies need to move fast, and are doing so in a couple of ways.

"You can see the auto manufacturers certainly moving in what I would call more of an agile way of doing car production, and training workforces in agile means of doing things," McCarthy said.

"Some manufacturers, as they hit certain points, are not refilling those positions. It's not necessarily that there's mass layoffs, but they're not filling those positions again," he added.

So there are a few things for workers to keep in mind.

"You can take somebody that is doing some form of work that is fairly sophisticated in a combustion engine and move them over to the battery side," McCarthy said. "If we are going to increase US production of key drivetrain components, the batteries, the systems that now we get the majority of overseas, that has to rise in the US if we're going to be competitive."