I Don't Understand This

[Mobasser]

A friend of mine runs a small general contracting business. I help him on a part time basis, usually two or three days per week.                  He does all sorts of home repairs, everything from small concrete repairs, new doors and windows, painting, etc. No job is too small, and he does this for a fair price. A senior citizen discount also.                                    He's been looking for an extra helper now for two weeks. The job pays 18.00 per hr to start. All tools are provided, as well as t shirts to wear to work.                               He's willing to train the right person, and has more than enough work to keep a guy busy full time. This includes winter interior work also. He's also good about giving pay increases to someone who will stick with it, and has a desire to learn.            He had two guys answer e mails. Neither showed up for the interview. Now, going on three weeks, and no one has applied. This is a well established business, for over twenty years, and has a good reputation with lots of repeat customers. My friend is an expert carpenter, and does excellent work.                         I don't understand this, and it's a real problem. This is sad, and it's not good.                 Anyone care to comment on this. Why do you think people are not taking jobs?          Come on boys, it's time to get back to work. It's past time.          

[A-Jay]

It is a problem - a Big Problem.

Mike Rowe has dedicated a good part of his humanness

trying to alert the public & the media about the persistent skills gap & job shortage

for going on 15 years now.

https://youtu.be/-LhpFM2ChmA?t=186

When many of these tradesman retire, so does their skill set

if there's no one willing to learn it & do it.

Can't take care of what these folks do with an APP. 

Probably will get worse before it gets better.

Very concerning, especially for the younger generations.

A-Jay

 

 

[813basstard]

Working is difficult. People don’t like difficult. I’m talking about adults, not the kids. I teach inner city public high school. The kids get a bad rap. The d**n adults are worse than the kids. Kids are resilient. They’re like puppies. You can cuss them, throw them out of your room, let them know they sucked today, then show them love the next class period. Adults? Ha. Insecure, moody, selfish, lazy etc…I laugh when people say ‘I don’t know how you deal with kids….” I have no clue how they deal with childish adults…I don’t know the answer to your post btw 

[gim]

You can literally make more money than that by a fair margin working at Culvers or Chipotle here.  They hire people to start at $25/hour.  If you were looking for a job that paid 18 or 25 an hour and offered benefits, paid time off, plus retirement, which one would you pick?  Just sayin'

[Mike L]

That’s SOP down here and been that way for years!

There are jobs for any skill level, education, potential advancement etc. 

 

The reasons as I see it is that it seems the unskilled labor market just plain don’t want to do any type of physical labor. 
Even the ones who have no secondary education for whatever reason just don’t want to do it where migrants will jump on the opportunity and will work at anything. 
 

Down here every trade in construction will gladly pay at the top of a non union scale and still can’t anyone to even apply. 
 

The trades are begging for people and the trade school enrollments are at an all time low. At least locally. 
 

When McDonalds offers a 200.00 new employee bonus and starting pay of 18.00 hr to flip burgers and can’t get anyone to apply. what does that say??

it’s really sad. 
 

No work ethic at all, seems people want a hand out these days and free money. 
No one wants to work for it. 
 

 

 

 

 

Mike
 

 

[throttleplate]

Is it okay to have no goals in life?

If you live without goals and end up failing, ask yourself if it's really a failure. You only fail if you don't get to where you wanted to go — but if you don't have a destination in mind, there's no failure. It's all good. No matter what path you find, no matter where you end up, it's beautiful.

[Mobasser]

16 minutes ago, gimruis said:

You can literally make more money than that by a fair margin working at Culvers or Chipotle here.  They hire people to start at $25/hour.  If you were looking for a job that paid 18 or 25 an hour and offered benefits, paid time off, plus retirement, which one would you pick?  Just sayin'

This is true here also. But, this job offers a chance to learn a trade skill, which can be a lifelong job that pays very well. You start small, and work your way up. Like going to school.

[gim]

Just now, Mobasser said:

This is true here also. But, this job offers a chance to learn a trade skill, which can be a lifelong job that pays very well. You start small, and work your way up. Like going to school.

I agree.  I would select the trade skill job if I had a choice.  But I don't represent the population of individuals in the area actually looking for a job either.  The labor pool of workers seems to be pretty slim in just about every field right now.

[TnRiver46]

I worked every day in June except for the 1st and the 2nd and barely scraping by, cry me a river haha

 

My body might be totally out of sweat by October 

 

from my experience the govt takes your money instead of handing it out 

[Functional]

I manage the facilities management and projects department at my company. I've had a Facilities Tech position opened for a year now this month. We've only had a few dozen candidates qualified and of that we interviewed 12-15, had a few no shows and made 4 offers. All 4 turned the job down because their companies or others paid more. We were paying 24-25 an hour with full state retirement and benefits that rivaled state quality. I even restructured our department to get a higher pay scale for this position and still cant attract anyone.

 

Its been my job for the past few months to study what its going to take to fill this position.

 

What were thinking at this point is:

1) trades (HVAC, electrical, etc.) can provide a much higher wage given the amount of work they have for those who survived COVID and they are now supplying benefits that used to be our selling point. The trade off is crazy hours and travel

2) We have 4/10 schedule and our buildings are no more than 15 minutes from eachother so we talked up that selling point. With the new work force being younger, most dont have families and care about the traveling requirements as long as they are paid more. Those that are older are more experience and dont want to be paid what a more entry level position pays.

3) Similar to what AJ said above, people just arent going into the trades. Creates a huge demand for them so they get paid a lot for those that go into the trades and it keeps trades companies super busy (and expensive) since theres less game in town

 

All services and construction I am responsible for have on average been 12-15% more expensive, which was driven home when we reviewed our end of fiscal year just recently when I had to explain why I was 15% over my budget. 

 

The bulk of those who do apply for us are typically those required to job search while receiving wellfare benefits and either dont show up, dont respond or have zero relateable skills.

 

Its the same for most of the crews (were a utility company) trying to recruit for their open spots. They used to get 40-50 applications for every position. Now they are lucky to get a dozen and have 2-3 worth an interview.  Its all going to hit a headway soon, big contributing factor to why everything is so expensive. 

[TOXIC]

Ok, I get it nobody wants to work but answer me this……where do all of these non-workers get their $$ to live on?  Is is unemployment? I know many got paid not to work during the pandemic but that money has got to be running out. Are they all living in mom and dads basement? Some have got to have families and need to provide for them.  The government keeps painting a rosy picture of the economy and spouting how unemployment is the lowest in decades….we all know that’s not true.  I consider myself somewhat smart and I keep up on current events but this one has me stumped.  Of course, I have worked non-stop since I was 13 years old.  

[Skunkmaster-k]

Reminds me of a Merle Haggard song. 

[DitchPanda]

 Several factors at play I believe. A job like your describing takes time and commitment to learn, with that comes responsibility and when your responsible for work getting done and it doesn't go well you cant get by saying its everyone's fault but mine. There's a real lack of drive and accountability in most people these days.

 Also as mentioned above its hard to get somebody to commit to a real skill job for $18hr when they can work at Wal-Mart for more than that stocking shelves at night...don't have any pressure on you, the boss isn't around.

 Lastly another thing I notice now a days is everybody feels like the world owes them something and that everything has to be "fair" whatever that means. Say your buddy hires a young person and teaches them the skills necessary to be competent at the job. A year in a portion of people will think they deserve to make the same money as him, never mind his risk and investment of both time and money are much higher. That won't matter because they are doing the same work as him. Entitlement is a powerful drug.

 

[Functional]

@DitchPanda thats a question I ask myself a lot. Where are all these people and who pays for the ones not working. I cant decide if its "boomers" leaving a huge gap that there just arent enough later gen people to fill. The biggest gap has been since covid and a lot of boomers retired around that time so timeline makes sense. A lot of boomers had multiple kids though so youd think wed have the workforce to backfill positions, maybe not.

 

I had to recently fight for an increase in my Co-Op/Intern roles because like you said they could go to the grocery store and make $5-8/hr more than I could pay. They allowed me $13/hr which has helped considering they learn a skill here too besides stocking shelves, but still no where near market pay. A problem I see here is people making a career out of entry level jobs like supermarkets and fast food joints. They demand more pay and get it somehow but it keeps the college/highschool kids out of the work force and those who SHOULD be in a more meaningful job sitting in the mcdonalds drive through screwing up my order. 

 

Its really a hell of a pickle were in. 

[Mobasser]

It's a sad deal. My dad grew up in the depression, worked first at age 12 to help the family struggle though. Then served in WW2 in combat.             His motto was, " always be proud of your work. It's not the job you do, or how much money you make, it's about having pride in being a working man".                               Sadly, I don't think we'll ever see guys like him again. 

[Darth-Baiter]

most people think they are better than an $18/hr job.  some are, most are not.  but it is what they think about themselves.  

 

We still see some hardworking people.  people that will work themselves to the bone.  but they dont...ah nevermind.  i dont want to go all..nevermind. 

[TnRiver46]

23 minutes ago, Mobasser said:

It's a sad deal. My dad grew up in the depression, worked first at age 12 to help the family struggle though. Then served in WW2 in combat.             His motto was, " always be proud of your work. It's not the job you do, or how much money you make, it's about having pride in being a working man".                               Sadly, I don't think we'll ever see guys like him again. 

You just gotta look harder

[Mike L]

No @Mobasser we won’t. 
When the last go there will never be another generation with the work ethic, and the pride in doing a job well done they had, regardless of what job that was. 

Why, because they had to work to just have a meal and survive, let alone work to help support their parents and everyone else in their family circle. 
Now, no one really has to do that. 
 

 

Mike

[TnRiver46]

I have several friends and family members that work hard, raise a family, and went to Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Do they count?? Apparently not. There will be wars, people working and raising families for years to come 

[A-Jay]

@Mobasser I can certainly relate to that sentiment. Every young serviceman & woman (Offiers & Enlisted) who is currently or has ever, made a 'Career' while defending our nation, started at the very bottom, chose a path and busted their butt to get ahead.

Unmotivated candidates, need not apply; you won't make it.

I'm starting to realize this topic really ruffles my feathers and how much I appreciate commitment. . Finally, it seems "Pride" has taken on a bit of a different meaning.

Sure hope it gets better.

A-Jay

[Mobasser]

2 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

I have several friends and family members that work hard, raise a family, and went to Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Do they count?? Apparently not. There will be wars, people working and raising families for years to come 

Of course they count, and I support all of them. Just very hard to find good help these days.

[Drawdown]

With the cost of living being what it is, and having two kids and a wife at home, it’d be stupid for me to take a job that pays less than $40k a year.

 

For a young, single guy splitting rent with a buddy or living at home with his parents?
It’s worth it—as an education for being an independent contractor in that field. If that field isn’t his interest, he’s better off stocking shelves until he has enough money to invest in the credentials/skills to do what he actually wants to.

[Mobasser]

2 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

@Mobasser I can certainly relate to that sentiment. Every young serviceman & woman (Offiers & Enlisted) who is currently or has ever, made a 'Career' while defending our nation, started at the very bottom, chose a path and busted their butt to get ahead.

Unmotivated candidates, need not apply; you won't make it.

I'm starting to realize this topic really ruffles my feathers and how much I appreciate commitment. . Finally, it seems "Pride" has taken on a bit of a different meaning.

Sure hope it gets better.

A-Jay

A-Jay, I agree 100 percent. I wish they could teach commitment. Most everything we do in life takes a commitment. A strong one. An easy example is our fishing. You want to be good? It takes commitment.

[gim]

1 hour ago, TOXIC said:

Is is unemployment? I know many got paid not to work during the pandemic but that money has got to be running out.

Unemployment varies by state.  The federal bonus that was applied during the beginning of the pandemic is long gone.

 

There was a substantial amount of early buyouts in some fields.  Workers who were nearing retirement received a little extra incentive to leave, and those workers have not been replaced.  They certainly haven't in my field.  Just in my district, we've had probably a dozen people retire the past 3 years, and we've only been able to replace 5 of them.  One location in Sioux Falls, SD has sat unfilled since December 2021 when the last guy who worked there for 25 years retired.  This is a government job with steady pay, good benefits/retirement, and the option to work a hybrid schedule out of a residence.  No one wants it, internally or externally.  I wouldn't necessarily want to work in South Dakota, but its a very attractive offer and it remains vacant.

[TnRiver46]

Maybe the folks that are having trouble hiring should try harder instead of defaulting to “don’t nobody wanna work anymore”

 

if they are determined enough they would find somebody