Ford Motor Company was incorporated in 1903 and right from the beginning, had a great need for labor. The demand for workers was met by individuals coming from rural parts of the United States, Canada and other parts of the world. Many were attracted to the economic promise of steady work in a fast-growing industry with few education requirements.
Ford’s firm was the first among auto manufacturers to make efforts in recruiting international workers – from skilled workers in industrial Scotland and England, to German metal and wood workers, to even smaller villages in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Mexico. Word of mouth was the biggest recruitment aid – many had heard about the "wonderful city of the magic motor” and its opportunities.
By 1908, numerous car models had already been released by Ford but they came with a big price tag. This all changed with the Model T. This automobile was designed with the middle class in mind and was the first to come at a much lower cost. The demand for the Model T was so high that it prompted Ford to invent the assembly line system in 1913.
The assembly line solved the efficiency problem but also created a labor problem. The tasks of the Ford labor force became much more repetitive and monotonous and the conditions in which they worked were hot, dirty and dangerous. The company was struggling with a high absentee rate (on any given day, over 1000 out of 13 000 workers would be absent) and an exceptionally high turnover rate (370%).
To combat this problem, in 1914, the Ford Motor Company announced it would be increasing assembly worker wages to $5 a day (more than doubling the wages) and shortening the work day from 9 hours to 8 hours. This decision was unheard of at the time and many thought Ford would soon go out of business.
The $5-a-day plan rapidly drew world-wide attention. Recruitment efforts saw a huge boost with the aid of international newspapers and word of mouth. Henry Ford became a worldwide celebrity. Thousands of new workers made their way to the Highland Park factory. By 1914, the majority of the Ford labor force were immigrants (of the 12 880 workers, 9109 were foreign-born). The flow of international workers continued until the immigration restriction acts were enforced due to World War I.
Today, we see the lasting effects of Ford Motor Company’s early recruitment and retention efforts. The Greater Detroit area has remained a multi-cultural and ethnically diverse area from the thousands of international workers that made their way here a century ago. After Ford began to pay his workers $5 a day, similar manufacturing companies were soon forced to follow Ford’s lead and pay their factory workers better wages.
