Worker shortage

[Sberry]

Wasnt too long ago we really didnt need any workers and really dont feel all that sorry for the ones with a big shortage. Every other work was basically our way or the hiway and the drug testing every few minutes,,, they going to do 10$ worth of tests to save 5 in insurance and used as another way to get rid of people.
The reality was some of those people had no biz in the jobs they were in and only there due to a poor economy all driven by HR types aint got a clue where the parking brake even is. The TSA was a great example of this, hired smart people to be security gaurds,,, well they train and last 3 weeks where they should have went down to the mall and got some used to doing that work. I was in a shitbox factory got that big idea, got rid of all the best help.
So,,, I was at a trade meeting the other day which was basically a **** and wine session, of course happy hr after but I keep my mouth shut. They all offering medical, higher wages, all kinds of stuff and I really dont blame lots of these people for saying fu, do it yourself. Lots of them been treating them like crap for so long anyone wants to work there already been thru it,,, but,,, didnt hear of a single peep about the whiz quiz, not one word. Wonder if they gonna get it at hire on,,, is Lowes and Home Depot still got it on the bannjers or have they decided maybe this wasnt such a winner of an idea?

 

[Sberry]

I worked in the trades during the 80s and early 90's and things were wayyyyy different. A lot of drinking and not much said till a guy was visably impared but at that time being really good welder bought a guy a lot of slack and some of the places wer work not many wanted to come up and fool with anyone.
Used to drink with the bosses, go to the bar at lunch, i am sure its a lot different. Big wonder we didnt hurt ourselves more. I was on a plant expansion in early 80's maybe, was a real demand for men. 30 contractors on one job and men dragging every time the overtime moved, they finally figure that out a little but one outfit had the labor buy a case of vodka every day and dump in one of the coolers.
In hindsite probably good idea on 7/12. They didnt pour it on till the end of the shift but sending them home tanked probably kept them out of the bars.

 

[Sberry]

I am not around a bunch of kids so dont know what that is like. There is still some incidents but the crack on DUI has really been the number 1 safety thing probably and both direct and indirect result is a lot of people not doing shite they routibnely did and I think a lot of kids are better today, they really are. Yhe bad news travels far and fast,,, if it bleeds it leads but lots of kids simply not interested in some of that and we were really bad. We were the kind your mother warned you about, carried the big coolers, got together and bought dope by the pound then, South Florida in 85,,, ha but before that I live in small town. Every night we do something. Was working Ironwork at 19, paid for car, no real living cept to eat.
I dont see people stagger in to work anymore. I worked second shift on a nuke for 6 or 8 months,,, could sleep there though.

 

[Sberry]

2 years ago I was threatened for lack of better wording to sign a pledge said I would vote no on min wage bill. I see that went by the wayside in a hurry. Exact same guy said it was gonna bust him now complaing he cant get anyone even with a pocket full of money.
I remember I was dating a news editor at the time and the owners came back from some winter trip all tan and in their Mercedes, aint been there in months and start down the staff, they using too many pencils and they really couldnt afford a new mouse for the keyboards, stopped in to tell the editor she wasnt sposed to print any news that wasnt from official sources. That and the news was only filler between the adds.
Lost the best they had over that.
I am amazed how many people in the world are actually hired cause they are stupid and dont know anything. Its a science. Thats why the poly scie degrees to go along with others.

 

[Sberry]

So if Joe can sit home and get 500 more a week than working I kind of find it hard to blame him.

 

[crane operator]

So is drinking and posting on Saturday morning now a thing? I've been gone all week- I must have missed the new rules.

 

[Truck Shop]

Only cream sodas and root beer floats.

 

[Sberry]

No, it really was a wonder how the tables have turned, used to be a guy had to jump thru the hoops now we promising them everything. Wasn't too long ago most had to have a perfect resume and today barely got to write his name.
This was just a ramble and comparing the contrast over the years and how things change. Our generation was out of control, then workers really had to suck up and now we have the reverse and lots of employers seem to feel like they entitled to workers now. 2 years ago whining they couldn't give small raises and now they seem to have plenty to toss at it and see what sticks.

 

[AzIron]

It's a market shift people don't want to work trades now and construction is in a bull market there are not enough people to perform demanded work prices will go up till there is an oversupply of labor then and only then will the low and barley performing be weeded out

I have no idea what really went on in the 80s and 90s as far as drug abuse and alcohol around jobs heard lots of stories but since the early millennium lawyers and insurance companys have made it very hard to have a alcoholic or needle jockey around any sort of equipment or work space for liability purposes alone

I can find guys as I am ready to hire them but they are clean slates and need to be trained cant hire experience and really what passes for top hands these days I really dont want

 

[John C.]

The thought has occurred to me that a person willing to sit around and collect unemployment instead of working is not the kind of employee that I would want to have. Right now the only people that I know doing that are the unskilled who could only qualify for a minimum wage job to start with. I would expect wait staff in a restaurant to stay with the government's offer. I wouldn't expect and don't know of any mechanics, truck drivers, equipment operators or welders that would be sitting anywhere right now.

I see lots of signs out for all kinds of skilled trades that are expecting to hire fully qualified people off the street. Apparently those fully qualified unemployed people don't exist or they won't work for the crap wages and no benefits many places are willing to offer.

 

[CM1995]

I can find guys as I am ready to hire them but they are clean slates and need to be trained cant hire experience and really what passes for top hands these days I really dont want

Same here. I'd rather hire green and train up. We go through alot with that philosophy but if you go through enough you'll find a keeper every now and then.

The term "skilled" in todays terms has a whole other meaning than it did back in the 80's and 90's.

 

[Welder Dave]

Back when things were busy in the oilfield (Alberta) workers could pick and choose where they wanted to work. When things were slow employers could pick and choose who they wanted. What got to me and the guys I worked with was guys who try to pass themselves off as the greatest thing since sliced bread in their job interview but once on the shop floor were pretty lost and not even close to living up to the hype they had in the interview. I always preferred a job test so they could see what I could do instead of what I could put on paper or pass off in the interview. Remember one guy who had somehow got his welding ticket and was going for his steel fabricator ticket. He thought he was so good because he was going to have 2 tickets. Problem was he couldn't weld as good as some of the 1st year apprentices in the shop. Hard to give much respect to someone who you had to grind their welds off and redo them.

 

[Hundo]

There are several things adding to the "mechanic shortage" with some of them growing in severity over the years. I came through the trades starting in the late 80s/early 90s when you came up through the ranks as helper to apprentice to journeyman and finally if you were good enough, master. For years and years I was the youngest in any of the shops I was at and the old timers would say it was because "nobody wants to work anymore". Now I realize they were not far from the truth.

For the last 20 years or so, it has been drilled into children's heads that in-order to make it in life they need a college education and get a white collar job and those who pull a wrench couldn't do anything else and were looked down upon. As school budgets were slashed, industrial arts classes tended to be cut first and never restored. Then these predatory colleges started pushing the student loan programs in high schools with the promise of great paying jobs. So the exposure to the "trades" pretty much ended. I am not anti-college, I'm just stating these actions have added to the problem on top of the student loan debt issue (that is a topic for another day). Mechanics as a whole have also been generally looked down on from every other profession there is and has gotten worse over the years.

Think about this, would you rather work in an air conditioned office, never get your hands dirty, start at 9am and never break a sweat or work in a hot, dirty, oily shop, start at 6am or earlier and have grease under your finger nails for the rest of your life ? That was an actual question a guidance councilor asked my nephews when they told him they wanted to be mechanics like their uncle.

Another issue is the majority of companies consider mechanics/maintenance a necessary evil and try their best to get it as cheap as they can. I completely understand the whole profit/loss dynamic and how it affects the bottom line but when you try to hire a green mechanic and pay them less than what Mickie D's pays and expected them to show up on the first day with 20 grand in tools, your personal pool will get smaller and smaller. I've been in management meetings were corporate opinion on mechanics was "they are just like city buses, wait 10 minutes and another will come along." Then 3 months later wondering why nobody is applying.

In mid-March of 2020, when covid first started to hit hard here in central Texas, the day that Austin/Travis County announced a stay at home order, before anybody even knew what was going to happen, the company I was at just started cutting pay, took bonuses away, cut hourly worker hours all the while expecting the same amount of machines to be flipped. Branch managers and above were not affected, most started working remotely and expected everyone else to pick up the slack. Then when people were potentially exposed at work, got told to go home for 14 days without pay. Some even got cut loose while on the 14 day quarantine, I was one of them. I'm sure things like this happened all over. After awhile, people started asking themselves "why work for a company that preaches family but turns it back that quick" and "why should I show company loyalty when they showed me none". When they called me 9 months later to come back. I never returned their call. The same as most who were furloughed.

It's happening in all industries, the work pool in general is burned out, tired of working in high stress environments for employers that are unappreciative and for crap pay. Some have realized they can make due on less and have decided to do so. The extended unemployment benefits that some would blame for worker shortage only is a small part of a bigger picture. The mechanic shortage is only going to get worse as more and more baby boomers retire as nobody, as a general rule, is coming in to re-fill the spots opening up or any in the rest of the trades for that matter.

 

[mg2361]

Welcome to HEF Hundo!

Think about this, would you rather work in an air conditioned office, never get your hands dirty, start at 9am and never break a sweat or work in a hot, dirty, oily shop, start at 6am or earlier and have grease under your finger nails for the rest of your life ? That was an actual question a guidance councilor asked my nephews when they told him they wanted to be mechanics like their uncle.

Then the response to the counselor should have been "so, what your saying is you want the brain dead slacker fixing the brakes on your car?"

 

[Sberry]

"No one wants to work" goes right with,,, no one wants to pay. The world was taken over by "Business Adm" types, all going to "save" money and talk to everyone like they are stupid. They but these shitheels in charge the day they come out of school.

 

[Sberry]

I was in a plant was a disaster and the manager fukkin with the janitor. Guy had no experience in anything this plant needed
I asked where the electrician was and he started looking at a chart on the wall. Didnt know they didnt have one, 300 people working in a plant with hundred machines, maintainence dept wit a bent screwdriver and 1/4 electric drill, sent someone to store for electric tape 1 roll at a time.
Said they were going to train maint guy this next week. Semi moving stock in, trying to keep track on back of scrap paper
Talk to them and they know more about it that most people do. Got ready made excuse and reasoning for any question, **** dont even make sense with a sincere look in the eye and dismissive attitude.

 

[Vetech63]

There are several things adding to the "mechanic shortage" with some of them growing in severity over the years. I came through the trades starting in the late 80s/early 90s when you came up through the ranks as helper to apprentice to journeyman and finally if you were good enough, master. For years and years I was the youngest in any of the shops I was at and the old timers would say it was because "nobody wants to work anymore". Now I realize they were not far from the truth.

For the last 20 years or so, it has been drilled into children's heads that in-order to make it in life they need a college education and get a white collar job and those who pull a wrench couldn't do anything else and were looked down upon. As school budgets were slashed, industrial arts classes tended to be cut first and never restored. Then these predatory colleges started pushing the student loan programs in high schools with the promise of great paying jobs. So the exposure to the "trades" pretty much ended. I am not anti-college, I'm just stating these actions have added to the problem on top of the student loan debt issue (that is a topic for another day). Mechanics as a whole have also been generally looked down on from every other profession there is and has gotten worse over the years.

Think about this, would you rather work in an air conditioned office, never get your hands dirty, start at 9am and never break a sweat or work in a hot, dirty, oily shop, start at 6am or earlier and have grease under your finger nails for the rest of your life ? That was an actual question a guidance councilor asked my nephews when they told him they wanted to be mechanics like their uncle.

Another issue is the majority of companies consider mechanics/maintenance a necessary evil and try their best to get it as cheap as they can. I completely understand the whole profit/loss dynamic and how it affects the bottom line but when you try to hire a green mechanic and pay them less than what Mickie D's pays and expected them to show up on the first day with 20 grand in tools, your personal pool will get smaller and smaller. I've been in management meetings were corporate opinion on mechanics was "they are just like city buses, wait 10 minutes and another will come along." Then 3 months later wondering why nobody is applying.

In mid-March of 2020, when covid first started to hit hard here in central Texas, the day that Austin/Travis County announced a stay at home order, before anybody even knew what was going to happen, the company I was at just started cutting pay, took bonuses away, cut hourly worker hours all the while expecting the same amount of machines to be flipped. Branch managers and above were not affected, most started working remotely and expected everyone else to pick up the slack. Then when people were potentially exposed at work, got told to go home for 14 days without pay. Some even got cut loose while on the 14 day quarantine, I was one of them. I'm sure things like this happened all over. After awhile, people started asking themselves "why work for a company that preaches family but turns it back that quick" and "why should I show company loyalty when they showed me none". When they called me 9 months later to come back. I never returned their call. The same as most who were furloughed.

It's happening in all industries, the work pool in general is burned out, tired of working in high stress environments for employers that are unappreciative and for crap pay. Some have realized they can make due on less and have decided to do so. The extended unemployment benefits that some would blame for worker shortage only is a small part of a bigger picture. The mechanic shortage is only going to get worse as more and more baby boomers retire as nobody, as a general rule, is coming in to re-fill the spots opening up or any in the rest of the trades for that matter.

Excellent post. Bravo!

 

[Vetech63]

Well, I've been on both sides of this fence. I understand as being a employee for a company.....and being a business owner. The shortage of service people started a while back and just gets worse. Getting good employees has to start with THE EMPLOYEE..........by having good work ethic and taking some pride in the job they do. Too many young people think they should draw high pay with no experience, I see it constantly. When I was young you started off as a trainee, you learned as you went along, took advise and instruction well, and EARNED your way to better wages. You also treated your elders with RESPECT and learned from them. I didn't earn top pay until I was 10 years in this business and when I had no where else to climb at that point.......I had the ambition and drive to start my own business. I have always been extremely picky about my work, how I repair something, cleaning up after myself, and treating the customer as I would expect to be treated. Over 30 years self employed and I have never looked back & never had to look for work. It seems the type that get hired now days have no experience and keep their job if they can pass a drug test and show up for work every day. This type of employee isn't going to get paid well unless they prove their worth.

On the flip side of this, when I was an employee at a young age.......did I feel underpaid? Doesn't everyone!? I never saw wages keep up with the costs of living during my time but I also realized I didn't have alot of experience even then so I was OK with doing my time to get there. As said in Hundo's excellent post, companies are STILL trying to get a journeyman class tech for pennies. They continue to hire the less experienced, at the cheapest cost, and hope to gain a more profitable business. Most don't look at the bigger picture, they deem servicing/repairing of the equipment as a necessary liability and all the costs with it is just wasted money. They dont understand that by employing the journeyman types, or even good workers willing to learn the business, will actually SAVE them money and turn that liability into a great asset. Less time to service and repair......money saved on unnecessary parts changing,.........smarter parts and service purchasing,...............regularly scheduled PM services.......it DOES pay dividends.

The problem is on BOTH sides of the fence. Until those mindsets change.........nothing will.

 

[Truck Shop]

Motivated-few people are motivated by self interest. Pride-few people are prideful.
Workmanship, few people want to develop class workmanship. Skill-few people
have necessary skill to work with their hands and mind.

If the boss and worker are limited in any of these areas-it's a bad end result.

 

[Welder Dave]

Have seen some of the better outfits offer signing bonus's for journeyman mechanics. The Unions can be a problem sometimes too. A few years ago there was a big issue at Suncor. They wanted to do random drug testing of all employee's but the union said it was a violation of the workers rights. The union won in the end but I don't think won is the correct term. Drug use in the oilsands/Ft. McMurray is a problem, actually most big operations that do pay well it's a problem. Why the heck is the union protecting the drug users? Good workers who are clean have no problem taking a drug test and don't want to be around the ones doing drugs. Former neighbors brother was on a pipeline job and said there were guys doing cocaine on the job. He sure hoped the guy running the side boom wasn't stoned out of his mind. It could kill somebody!