In our Spotlight on Business report tonight, a job training program in Toms River is helping to fill a critical workforce shortage in the auto industry.

Automotive technicians are in high demand as many are set to retire soon.

And as the technology behind vehicles continues to change, these roles will require new skill sets.

Raven Santana visited the program to see how they're training the next generation of workers and help launch their careers.

New Jersey's automotive industry is facing a quiet crisis, a critical shortage of skilled technicians.

As seasoned mechanics retire, thousands of positions are going unfilled, leaving dealerships scrambling to meet demand and customers waiting longer for service.

So the shortage has been caused by many things.

Number one, parents and really encouraging students traditionally or the children traditionally to go into college.

So we don't have the pipeline from high school into technician program training.

And then on top of that, we also have a big baby boomer population who has been in this position and these great jobs for a long time.

And they are all retiring basically at once.

We have a shortage of roughly 12,500 technicians in the state of New Jersey that we need to get filled.

This will really hit in 2026.

So this is hot and coming and we have a lot of work to do.

But at Honda of Toms River, a bold solution is rolling out.

Industry leaders, educators and state officials came together to launch the Technician Advancement Program or TAP.

A first of its kind initiative redefining how New Jersey trains its future workforce.

Funded by the New Jersey Department of Labor's Pre-Apprenticeship in Career Education Grant, TAP delivers 18 weeks of free hands-on training right inside local dealerships, giving students real world experience without the burden of student debt.

These are programs where employers are investing in their workers.

The workers see their employer investing in them.

That helps with retention.

That helps with turnover.

It's built in succession planning.

So it takes away, not only does it give you high quality employees who are making a good living and benefits, it also takes away the stress and anxiety of who's going to be next.

We know who's going to be the next person filling that job because they're already working for you and being trained by you the way you want them trained.

Created by the New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers in partnership with the state, TAP offers more than just education.

It's a launch pad to lifelong careers.

A program like this that is more condensed as well, right?

What I've recognized is a year or two in school can be a long time for someone.

18 weeks is a small kind of glimpse in your life.

Something more manageable, right?

Something that you can try and accomplish and conquer, then enter and see how it goes, right?

I think a lot of people that are out there in the world right now go to college to try to explore.

I think programs like this should be a place where students go to explore themselves, right?

Rather than putting themselves into debt.

And with the auto industry evolving rapidly, especially with electric vehicles and computer-driven diagnostics, today's technicians are more than mechanics.

They're tech-savvy specialists at the cutting edge of innovation.

The dealer body is the one that needs technicians, and we need to help people grow into these roles.

You know, college isn't putting people into technician roles.

So this program is specifically developed to help people grow a great career, learn about the business, make six-figure salary, which is fabulous, and have job security.

It's not a job that AI is going to erase.

These jobs are lasting jobs.

We're going to do some classroom stuff.

We're going to talk about the technology and how to diagnose cars, and then the technology that's driving technicians today to learn about it, and then take that knowledge and those lessons and bring them back with our instructors and our master tech, which we've allocated to this program, into the shop and actually see how it all works, how it all comes together and get real-world experience from the team in our shop.

For students, TAP is already changing lives.

To be able to enter this field that's male-dominated, I'm excited about that.

I have an interest in opening my own repair shop, and this opportunity presented itself.

I actually went and took a class at ACIT in Atlanta County, and I finished that, and then this came along, and it was just perfect.

It's all free.

You get a toolbox when we complete it with 3,000 tools.

It's pretty awesome because I know guys that I went to class with at ACIT.

They got a job in a dealership.

They don't have their tools.

And with the demand for technicians only growing, programs like TAP are not just filling jobs.

They're building futures.

It's proof that career success doesn't always follow a traditional path.

Sometimes it starts in a garage with a wrench, a dream, and the right support to turn both into a reality.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Raven Santana.

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Halsey, a neighborhood built on hustle and heart.

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