The Wall Street Journal, 1 July, 2023

RONNIE CLENDENIN has been working in the auto-repair business for three decades. He’s never been so frazzled. The parking lot at Clendenin’s Tire and Auto Service in Guy, Ark., a town about an hour north of Little Rock, was recently packed with 62 vehicles, double the typical workload from a few years ago. Without the workers or car parts he needs to keep up, Clendenin says, he regularly turns away loyal customers. “It’s hard to do. People aren’t used to it,” he says. “They’re used to just dropping it off and getting it taken care of.” Across the U.S., a shortage of car parts in the past few years has collided with a continuing dearth of service technicians. The result: more frustrated customers, who are waiting longer to get their cars back, and paying more for service.

The backlog risks becoming a drag on the U.S. economy as higher repair costs prompt consumers to cut back spending elsewhere, or simply not having a working car curtails their mobility and productivity. A swath of service industries are facing labor shortages, from home construction to restaurants, appliance repair to trucking. For the big automakers, this is the latest sign that the industry is still struggling to adapt to the shifts from the last few years. Nearly everything about shopping for and owning a car is different since the Covid-19 pandemic: Americans wait to get the car they want instead of driving it off the lot, they have fewer choices, and discounts or cheap leases are a thing of a past, prepandemic life.