Lately, the attention of Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Washington has centered on exciting breakthroughs in A.I., quantum computing, and robotics. These innovations have brought huge opportunities to white-collar workers. But what about the 95 million workers who rarely sit behind a desk – those in essential industries like construction, service and maintenance, agriculture, energy, and skilled trades, who go to work largely in trucks and vans every day?
Exact quote, beginning
Jim Farley
Ford Motor Company CEO.
In a 2025 LinkedIn article, Jim Farley wrote that excitement about AI and other technologies had overlooked 95 million workers who rarely sit behind a desk.
CEO, Ford Motor CompanyPublished June 27, 2025 · date of remarks not establishedJim Farley on LinkedIn
Context and checks
Surrounding words
Now as Ford’s CEO, I get to learn a ton about cutting-edge technologies, software, and solutions that promise to redefine the way we live and work all over again. Lately, the attention of Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Washington has centered on exciting breakthroughs in A.I., quantum computing, and robotics. These innovations have brought huge opportunities to white-collar workers. But what about the 95 million workers who rarely sit behind a desk – those in essential industries like construction, service and maintenance, agriculture, energy, and skilled trades, who go to work largely in trucks and vans every day? I think, amid all that excitement, we’ve lost sight of the backbone of our economy: the Essential Economy. These important people support 3 million businesses and critical industrial sectors across the country, generating $12 trillion of our GDP. They service our homes, repair our vehicles, and respond to emergencies.
What this quote does not say
- Farley attributed the opportunity gap to AI, quantum computing, and robotics together, not to AI alone.
- Later in the article, Farley wrote that essential-economy jobs would not be replaced by AI or automation anytime soon and proposed using robots and augmented reality to raise trade-worker productivity.
How this was checked
- Quote matched character-for-character against the captured page.
Reviewed by
an AI reviewer that read the whole source · an automatic character-by-character check