Looking for help... Skilled trades...

[Madmopars]

We run a commercial HVAC company here in Tucson. We are not your typical HVAC company that only works on the smaller 5-ton and less mini-split kind of company. We work on chillers, boilers, pumps, cooling towers and pretty much all things HVAC from service to replacements to new construction. While there is no shortage of work there is definitely a shortage of skilled workers. This really should be of no surprise to anyone as it has been a topic of discussion with folks like Mike Rowe, Dave Ramsey and others. The question is, when will it improve? I've attempted to find skilled workers for awhile now with no luck. I think at this point anyone that's worth having is happily employed and or at least handsomely paid. In either case, the situation is still such that there is a notable shortage of workers. To dive deeper into this shortage, I'm seeing a generational gap. It appears as though the older skilled folks are retiring out and there is a clear gap in the age of the workforce in these trades. This is probably something we should have seen coming and sadly I think it's only going to get worse.

Has anyone found a way around this mess? If so, care to share words of wisdom?

At this point, unless I'm missing something in my hiring endeavors, my new plan is to find not so much someone skilled per se but rather someone who is mechanically inclined, has a desire to learn a skilled trade and perhaps most importantly, has integrity. I understand this is still a tall order but if I can find them, I'll be thrilled to teach them everything I know in hopes of doing my part to fix this train wreck. If anybody knows someone that fits the bill send them my way...

 

[Jesse6869]

I am in carpenters union in san fran. People would rather stay home live off the government then go to work. We have6 guys same doctor all getting work comp, And when they work they make little over 50$ hour Plus benefits. We have the easiest work it of the unions and the most hours you could want does not matter. People make easier money of tic toc, government buying and selling off internet. There is good ones out there but it takes awhile to find them. Good luck.

 

[5.7 hemi]

Got a local trade school in your area? I’d check with them.

 

[Kern Dog]

I was a member of Local 180 in Vallejo but finished up my 30+ years doing work closer to home near Sacramento. Also a Union Carpenter. MOST of the guys that I knew were good guys...family men that worked hard and got a lot done. I worked primarily for the same company from 1988 to 2019. When they were in between projects, we would either wait it out or get work with other companies. NONE of our core guys refused work when called back. We all gladly returned, some like me even quit the other employers that we were working with to return to our main employer.
We were all colors and races. White guys, Latinos, a few black guys and Filipinos too. One thing we all had in common though? We ALL were over 40 and worked through to our retirement age and checked out. The company closed and shut down in 2019 so the ones that still needed a few more years to reach our magic 30 year number had to join in with someone else.
I did. My work ethic was really appreciated because even though I was the "New guy" that was well over 50 years old, I outworked and outsmarted almost everyone on the crew without even trying. It was just me being who I have been.....self starter, motivated to give a good value, pride in my work and forward planning for efficiency and to minimize mistakes. Within a month, I was offered a Foreman spot. More pay, more hours. I didn't want it though. I just wanted to reach my goal and ride off into the sunset.
This is possibly a familiar thing that is happening.
I was born and raised with NO entitlement mentality. We earned what we wanted to have. We didn't blame others for our own failures. We had pride in our work so we tried hard to do fast and clean work. I could have squeezed higher wages from the bosses if I tried but to me, that was rude. In the job where they wanted me as Foreman, the boss was adding 6-8 hours of paid time to my check every week. I'd work 40 and get overtime hours on the check as well. They clearly had an appreciation for the old fashioned work ethic. I never asked for extra and even called him out for it. I thanked him and said while I appreciated it, it was not necessary. People might think I was silly to turn down free money but to me, I had started to wonder if greater expectations of my role there were coming. I just wanted to finish and leave. The work wasn't fun like before.

 

[bearman]

I been dealing with the same problem it's been two years still nothing so I went your route you are. Here's my problem I have to top dollar and still have to pay my wages so add them together and bang your broke. Then have to redo his work because he did it wrong now its double time. So I have went a different route I try hard just to schedule what myself and my second hand man can cover everyday. Yes it hurts not to turn out the work like I use to but the reward is the job is done and done right. I looking at the point to retire and get rid of these problems because it not going to get any better until the hand outs are turned off. I could go on but I'll stop all I can say is I feel for you folks in your fortys looking for help. Good luck

 

[Budnicks]

Go to the local High School & vocational or ROP classes
recruit them young, pay them well, keep them engaged...
They will be faithful unless you screw them financially...

I'm glad I fully retired a 2 years ago...
I put them headaches behind me, serenity now

I was in construction/general contracting & then facility management
we did everything, from the front gate to back fence, you name it,
we build it or repaired it...
I specialized in automotive dealerships
(I started out in carpentry, residential framing, drywall & plumbing,
additions, tile, HVAC carpeting, bathrooms & kitchen remodel,
all but electrical & roofing... I had to good buddies in them buss.'s
that I gladly gave the contracts to)
Commercial work is so much better, the work is far better for those customers too
not so much penny pinchers, lurking over your shoulders constantly
It took me like 14 years (or 35) to get 8 great men skill people
that could do most anything construction related...
I had 2 good office women, bookkeeper & secretary/HR
those 8 & 2 stuck around thru thick & thin
made great $$$ too, why they stayed...
And 6 laborers (mainly Union, dealership are pro-union) or more
depending on the job/s at hand, that would come & go like a revolving door
both Union & Non-Union, on all jobs
most of the union guys always bailed
& the better ones good workers did piecework, made twice as much money
if they worked hard...
A few years into the commercial stuff
I started paying my good guys for piecework, only if they chose to
If I bid the job at 8 hrs & they finished in 6 they got paid for 8 still...

I had a great happy workforce that made great $$,
industry std or above usually
& made me good money too...

Money makes the world go round, need to pay well to keep good workers...

All the advice I will say...

 

[demonram]

Go to the local High School & vocational or ROP classes
recruit them young, pay them well, keep them engaged...
They will be faithful unless you screw them financially...

I'm glad I fully retired a 2 years ago...
I put them headaches behind me, serenity now

I was in construction/general contracting & then facility management
we did everything, from the front gate to back fence, you name it,
we build it or repaired it...
I specialized in automotive dealerships
(I started out in carpentry, residential framing, drywall & plumbing,
additions, tile, HVAC carpeting, bathrooms & kitchen remodel,
all but electrical & roofing... I had to good buddies in them buss.'s
that I gladly gave the contracts to)
Commercial work is so much better, the work is far better for those customers too
not so much penny pinchers, lurking over your shoulders constantly
It took me like 14 years (or 35) to get 8 great men skill people
that could do most anything construction related...
I had 2 good office women, bookkeeper & secretary/HR
those 8 & 2 stuck around thru thick & thin
made great $$$ too, why they stayed...
And 6 laborers (mainly Union, dealership are pro-union) or more
depending on the job/s at hand, that would come & go like a revolving door
both Union & Non-Union, on all jobs
most of the union guys always bailed
& the better ones good workers did piecework, made twice as much money
if they worked hard...
A few years into the commercial stuff
I started paying my good guys for piecework, only if they chose to
If I bid the job at 8 hrs & they finished in 6 they got paid for 8 still...

I had a great happy workforce that made great $$,
industry std or above usually
& made me good money too...

Money makes the world go round, need to pay well to keep good workers...

All the advice I will say...

The problem is, high schools don’t have those programs anymore. My thinking is, they wanted everyone to go to college. The so called educated school boards seemed to think college would help every kid have a better life. Who did they think would build their schools, homes, hospitals or whatever? I think we all know how this whole scenario worked out, the situation we have now. If they thought beyond their own selfish beliefs, it would at least given a kid a choice or a chance to see if it was something they wanted to pursue.

 

[Takoctopus]

Pay more! Most trades around here want to pay less than $15 an hour because they say they are teaching you a trade. Warehouse pays $20. This is Indiana but under $20 doesn’t get you a person who cares about anything.

 

[hemi71x]

I grew up in the state of Connecticut, where high school, trade schools were all over the state, in lots of cities.
I went to one, in the late 60's, and took up the industrial, machinist, trade.
In our senior year before graduation, they took us on "field trips" into lots of the factories to give you an idea of a place you would like to apply for a job upon graduation.
What an eye opening experience that turned out to be.
Having never been inside any of those factories before, just seeing them from street level, in the city that i lived in, what a shock those tours turned out to be.
Those decrepit factories were probably built during the early 1900's, and i remember being inside one of them that had dirt floors, believe it or not.
Well, i never went to work in those old factories, but got a job in a mom and pop, family owned, tool shop.
But that job turned out to be a production type of job, and i quickly got turned off about working in factories, the rest of my life.
Found out that it wasn't for me.
I decided to join the US Air Force, and became a jet aircraft mechanic, one and two engines, and was a crew chief on the F-4 Phantom's, and then a phased dock mechanic on the little T-37 trainers.
Manufacturing went away to overseas countries decades ago, and shut down lots of industrial factories, back in East coast states, so i never looked back in the type of job that i left, and wasn't really suited for.

 

[moparedtn]

Same deal in my trade (fire protection) as in most of the others.
The education system in this country has all but devalued the trades to the point that with the
advent of the "precious snowflake" generation, we have precious little new talent entering the profession.

There's but two choices in getting good help as a result:
a. "stealing" them from competitors
b. making them from scratch, i.e. finding young folks with a good work ethic and mechanical aptitude
and training them up properly, like we used to do decades ago when I first got into it

The problem may well be as much institutional as it is educational - but as bad as it is now, it's only getting
worse. If the ship isn't righted as generations coming up don't realize what's happening, they're going to find
themselves in a world where nothing works - and society collapses eventually.

 

[Dave6T4]

I was in skilled trades for most of my work life. I was also a supervisor for ten years, but never really liked it. I returned to skilled trades for the last 26 years of my career. Skilled trades were all paid the same, be it electrician, millwright, tool maker, or tool inspector/ instrument repair (my specialty), at the top of the union pay scale. As a bonus, I worked in a climate-controlled Q.C. lab, as opposed to the factory floor.
I am proud to say that my 18 year-old granddaughter has completed her first year in millwright training at a local community college. I was actually surprised that she chose to do this.
As someone else said, check out vocational schools or community colleges. Offer an apprenticeship. A person would much rather be paid as an apprentice to learn the job, than have to pay at a college to learn the same skills. I noticed yesterday, a local automotive parts plant had a sign out front, advertising for skilled trades. They said they pay up to $45/hr. for millwrights.

 

[Detective D]

We run a commercial HVAC company here in Tucson. We are not your typical HVAC company that only works on the smaller 5-ton and less mini-split kind of company. We work on chillers, boilers, pumps, cooling towers and pretty much all things HVAC from service to replacements to new construction. While there is no shortage of work there is definitely a shortage of skilled workers. This really should be of no surprise to anyone as it has been a topic of discussion with folks like Mike Rowe, Dave Ramsey and others. The question is, when will it improve? I've attempted to find skilled workers for awhile now with no luck. I think at this point anyone that's worth having is happily employed and or at least handsomely paid. In either case, the situation is still such that there is a notable shortage of workers. To dive deeper into this shortage, I'm seeing a generational gap. It appears as though the older skilled folks are retiring out and there is a clear gap in the age of the workforce in these trades. This is probably something we should have seen coming and sadly I think it's only going to get worse.

Has anyone found a way around this mess? If so, care to share words of wisdom?

At this point, unless I'm missing something in my hiring endeavors, my new plan is to find not so much someone skilled per se but rather someone who is mechanically inclined, has a desire to learn a skilled trade and perhaps most importantly, has integrity. I understand this is still a tall order but if I can find them, I'll be thrilled to teach them everything I know in hopes of doing my part to fix this train wreck. If anybody knows someone that fits the bill send them my way...

I don't know if you are, but my company is not a union company, so YMMV.

There are 4 things to keep in mind to grow a workforce of skilled technicians.

1. You need the employee to understand this is a Technician, a skilled position that is worthy of making a career out of. Not a "helper" or "new guy does the grunt work" or "you don't know anything so we will pay you retail worker wages".
2. You will almost certainly have to grow your own employees. Hence #1.
3. When you find the right employee, you better make sure you pay them enough to keep them from leaving.
4. Political stuff aside, the gov't has printed more money in the last two years then has ever existed ever. Inflation is real, "living costs" inflation is at least 35%, and some of it has hit 50%. You will need to understand what that means to the wages you have to pay. it is a new world, forget everything you thought for wages in the past. If you paid $20/hour for a new guy before you will be pushing $30 now to keep him 6 months in. Yes it is hard to figure out, yes this in itself might break the entire economy, but you can't keep working with no labor.

Related to all of the above, is you are in 100% competition with not just your industry. You are competing for the right employee with every single business in a 100 mile radius of you. You can adjust a little based on work condition, hours maybe, maybe a little bit benefits, but by and large you will have to compete wage wise with everyone. Depending on what's in your area, this radius might extend as far as 250 miles. Young people are not getting married and having kids, and the internet and such means they don't really care if they live 3 hours away from family, they will move. They move for more money. They aren't concerned with buying a house, that's "for later". Partly because the housing market is frankly stupid right now, and partly because they will move at the drop of a hat for a raise if it is significant enough and they know it and they don't want to be tied down.

If you haven't figured this out yet, it is going to come down to money. What has happened in the last 2-3 years is wages that used to secure a new hire for a skilled position are now equal to starting wages in retail positions. You will NEVER convince someone to work in a skilled trade busting their butt, manufacturing, construction.... for the same wage they can get stocking a shelf at Walmart. Around by me, wages that used to secure an employee for manufacturing labor 2 years ago were eclipsed by the starting wage from Aldi for the employee to sit on a stool at the checkout by $2/hour last year. An unprecedented wage war is going on, and every single business in your area is at war with you over the people worth fighting over.

If you used to bill $100/hour to a customer, you will need to do $150/hour.
Most importantly when this happens, is you MUST make sure your quality of service is 100%. Your competitors that can;t figure out how to pay for this new labor war and want to undercut your prices? They will have the rotating door people make mistakes and lose that QA and ultimately their business. What happens if you don't keep people is new people end up training new people. This will spiral until no one in your shop knows how to do anything, and worse, they have decided that they DO and won't listen to corrections because they are all doing it the same way.
Ultimately this will mean tight margins and bad profits and if you own your own company, YES, as a matter of fact a crap economy and crazy inflation WILL affect your bottom line because it is the only way to get through to the other side. This is the mistake from last go round in the early 2000's that put us mostly in this position, owners decided it wouldn't affect them and there was an insane level of brain drain as skilled work jumped ship to get a RAISE to go do UNSKILLED work. Fast forward to now, and this scenario is playing out again.
You have to think ahead and beat your competition to the punch, and suck it up and not make much money for a while while you do it. Poor economy is when you build for the future, despite that being counterintuitive. The strong will survive, and then when you do and come out the other side you will be fully ready to take on the rebound work no one else has capacity for.

I probably shouldn't put this out there for free. Aren't I supposed to sell a book or be a consultant or something for this

 

[moparedtn]

I don't know if you are, but my company is not a union company, so YMMV.

There are 4 things to keep in mind to grow a workforce of skilled technicians.

1. You need the employee to understand this is a Technician, a skilled position that is worthy of making a career out of. Not a "helper" or "new guy does the grunt work" or "you don't know anything so we will pay you retail worker wages".
2. You will almost certainly have to grow your own employees. Hence #1.
3. When you find the right employee, you better make sure you pay them enough to keep them from leaving.
4. Political stuff aside, the gov't has printed more money in the last two years then has ever existed ever. Inflation is real, "living costs" inflation is at least 35%, and some of it has hit 50%. You will need to understand what that means to the wages you have to pay. it is a new world, forget everything you thought for wages in the past. If you paid $20/hour for a new guy before you will be pushing $30 now to keep him 6 months in. Yes it is hard to figure out, yes this in itself might break the entire economy, but you can't keep working with no labor.

Related to all of the above, is you are in 100% competition with not just your industry. You are competing for the right employee with every single business in a 100 mile radius of you. You can adjust a little based on work condition, hours maybe, maybe a little bit benefits, but by and large you will have to compete wage wise with everyone. Depending on what's in your area, this radius might extend as far as 250 miles. Young people are not getting married and having kids, and the internet and such means they don't really care if they live 3 hours away from family, they will move. They move for more money. They aren't concerned with buying a house, that's "for later". Partly because the housing market is frankly stupid right now, and partly because they will move at the drop of a hat for a raise if it is significant enough and they know it and they don't want to be tied down.

If you haven't figured this out yet, it is going to come down to money. What has happened in the last 2-3 years is wages that used to secure a new hire for a skilled position are now equal to starting wages in retail positions. You will NEVER convince someone to work in a skilled trade busting their butt, manufacturing, construction.... for the same wage they can get stocking a shelf at Walmart. Around by me, wages that used to secure an employee for manufacturing labor 2 years ago were eclipsed by the starting wage from Aldi for the employee to sit on a stool at the checkout by $2/hour last year. An unprecedented wage war is going on, and every single business in your area is at war with you over the people worth fighting over.

If you used to bill $100/hour to a customer, you will need to do $150/hour.
Most importantly when this happens, is you MUST make sure your quality of service is 100%. Your competitors that can;t figure out how to pay for this new labor war and want to undercut your prices? They will have the rotating door people make mistakes and lose that QA and ultimately their business. What happens if you don't keep people is new people end up training new people. This will spiral until no one in your shop knows how to do anything, and worse, they have decided that they DO and won't listen to corrections because they are all doing it the same way.
Ultimately this will mean tight margins and bad profits and if you own your own company, YES, as a matter of fact a crap economy and crazy inflation WILL affect your bottom line because it is the only way to get through to the other side. This is the mistake from last go round in the early 2000's that put us mostly in this position, owners decided it wouldn't affect them and there was an insane level of brain drain as skilled work jumped ship to get a RAISE to go do UNSKILLED work. Fast forward to now, and this scenario is playing out again.
You have to think ahead and beat your competition to the punch, and suck it up and not make much money for a while while you do it. Poor economy is when you build for the future, despite that being counterintuitive. The strong will survive, and then when you do and come out the other side you will be fully ready to take on the rebound work no one else has capacity for.

I probably shouldn't put this out there for free. Aren't I supposed to sell a book or be a consultant or something for this

You ain't whistling any new tune here....
BUT you do bring up a vital trend of what I've observed in the trades, at least in this neck of the woods:
As much as they all harp on there being a lack of valid candidates for open positions, almost none of them
have active apprenticeship programs anymore, either.
The "why try to train 'em when they'll just wind up leaving?" mentality is rife around here.

Sure, that's going to happen sometimes - but if one has a good shop with a decent reputation for doing
good work, a smart young person would be eager to get onboard I'd think....but then, the older I get,
the more it seems I don't know how these younger folks think anymore either, so whadda I know?

 

[Xp29h]

We run a commercial HVAC company here in Tucson. We are not your typical HVAC company that only works on the smaller 5-ton and less mini-split kind of company. We work on chillers, boilers, pumps, cooling towers and pretty much all things HVAC from service to replacements to new construction. While there is no shortage of work there is definitely a shortage of skilled workers. This really should be of no surprise to anyone as it has been a topic of discussion with folks like Mike Rowe, Dave Ramsey and others. The question is, when will it improve? I've attempted to find skilled workers for awhile now with no luck. I think at this point anyone that's worth having is happily employed and or at least handsomely paid. In either case, the situation is still such that there is a notable shortage of workers. To dive deeper into this shortage, I'm seeing a generational gap. It appears as though the older skilled folks are retiring out and there is a clear gap in the age of the workforce in these trades. This is probably something we should have seen coming and sadly I think it's only going to get worse.

Has anyone found a way around this mess? If so, care to share words of wisdom?

At this point, unless I'm missing something in my hiring endeavors, my new plan is to find not so much someone skilled per se but rather someone who is mechanically inclined, has a desire to learn a skilled trade and perhaps most importantly, has integrity. I understand this is still a tall order but if I can find them, I'll be thrilled to teach them everything I know in hopes of doing my part to fix this train wreck. If anybody knows someone that fits the bill send them my way...

That seems to be the problem all over. Many people here in Maine are just trying to find people willing to work and spending the time and money to train them and hoping for the best!

5.7Hemi’s post 3 is a great idea! We have a trades school right here in town serving 4-5 different area high schools. Lager companies for Maine show up every year for the “job fair” day and hire kids on the spot. Companies like Bath Iron Works shows up all the time! Kids out of high school are more willing to relocate too!

Tough when your fast food McDonald’s is paying $18 bucks an hour to cook fries and flip burgers in a time when kids are uninterested in many things other than their phones and video games.

Good luck! Find the trades schools!

 

[bearman]

Now that is all said how many of you get a well rounded worker go get him hired paperwork all done etc etc. Then tell them that they will be in a random drug testing. Then they tell you well I smoke pot before bed. You look at them and say you realize you are getting a job in a safety sensitive work field. They get up and walk out wasted time and effort. Arizona it's okay to smoke as a state but the feds still see it as a crime. D.o.t is hard on it and if something was installed wrong and failure caused a accident then your *** better be ready for some jail time.

 

[bearman]

Here is a thought nation wide your new work force is coming. Just look at the southern border. They're coming by the millions good luck with that.

 

[padam]

Problem is the average American consumer is a pig who only thinks about where he’s going to buy his next meal, or Chinese POS consumer good.
Not a good environment to sell skilled labor.

 

[Ron H]

As posted, some of the root causes of this began 40+ years ago trying to push kids to 4-year colleges, I recall some of this going on when I was in HS and my 50th reunion is this summer. Anything ‘less’ was considered sub-class. Shop classes though were still stellar, unlike what I saw some years later working with school districts, even upper income community HS’s. Old machinery, piss-poor upkeep, hazardous class environment. When USA mfg started tanking when I was with a large machine tool blder, first thing they cut was their age-old premo apprenticeship program. President of the company had gone through the program 30 years earlier. He was fired replaced by a salesguy who knew squat about the industry. Longer sad story what happened next.

I remember many employers back then cutting their training programs, liaisons with good tech schools also gutted. Some of this has come back – too slowly. But, I know young guys who are fantastic workers and smart with trade skills. Just that fewer of them are around as the masses of boomers have retired. Employers are seeking retired people to work for them. Friend was at a large building store and was stopped by a rep who handed him an employment application “we’re looking for retired workers”.

Lol, if you’re retired be careful when shopping – you may have to call your wife telling her you won’t be home – until – after work.

 

[68BabyBlue]

I was already fighting with this stuff 30 years ago in corporate trucking, working for an outfit that offered the best non-union compensation in the industry. When I'd started working for them in 1984, their pay package had people waiting in line to get in. Same deal 10 years later, and people liked the idea of the big money, but left in droves when they found out how demanding the work was. I left 10 years after that when hiring drivers was becoming a crisis. In my industry, same as the others, societal forces set the stage. Major crossroad in trucking was economic deregulation in 1980, prior to that the industry was basically a public utility.

Rather than swim upstream when my corporate gig ended, I went with the flow, and went back to driving, had no competition in the niche hauling I did. I nearly bought the small company I leased to in 2010, but looking at the current skilled worker issues, not doing so was probably the best move of my 45 year career. Current ownership has had to embrace developing driving school graduates. Big problem with this is that driving the truck in only a small part of the skill set needed for operating dry bulk tankers. A blend of art and science, and totally hands on, the job defies automation. Sure glad that I'm out of it.

Corporate America has the fantasy that self driving trucks will solve the problem. It's going to be interesting when the powers that be find out it isn't going to happen.

 

[Hey-O]

I walked away at 52, it was on the down hill run then. We have created a country of takers, not workers. We have colleges that charge up to 90 thousand a year to do what only so many can do. We have a country where getting your hands dirty is the last thing most want and high schools are more concerned with them going to college. When my son passed away, I went to the trade school he went to in high school, half days and offered them money in his name for a scholarship. I phoned them many times and finally gave up. Now, getting paid to stay home and taking advantage of the system is the new career. I could say more, not the right spot for the rest of my thoughts. Good luck!!