And a well-sharpened scythe is good for cutting down swamp growth.
Posted on 08/27/2018 4:24:23 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Brian Friend sat at his kitchen table nursing a Friday-night beer this spring when he realized he would need to cancel $80,000 in landscaping contracts because he couldn’t hire enough workers.
“It was a low point,” said the 42-year-old Mr. Friend, who runs Sylvan Gardens Landscape LLC in Pittsburgh.
Like landscapers across the country, Mr. Friend has faced a severe labor shortage this year, spurred by low levels of unemployment and high demand for visas under the foreign seasonal-worker program known as H-2B. Higher wages and added bonuses haven’t attracted more workers, some landscapers say.
Richard Cafaro, owner of family-run Lawn Maintenance Services Co. outside Pittsburgh, said he was forced to shut down the 48-year-old company because it didn’t receive any of the seasonal foreign-worker visas it requested. For 17 years, the company had relied on those for the majority of its field crew.
“I just had no path forward,” said Mr. Cafaro, 47. “It’s so frustrating.”
Customers weren’t happy. Theresa Dozzi used Mr. Cafaro as her landscaper for 20 years. Ms. Dozzi, 64, watched this spring as the grass grew so high it became “unsightly” around her 10,000 square-foot brick home set on 3 acres in Fox Chapel outside Pittsburgh.
“It was a nightmare,” she said.
The tight labor market and visa shortage are hurting all kinds of industries that rely on seasonal workers, from Maryland’s crab-picking industry to New England restaurants to Michigan fudge shops. But the $82 billion-a-year landscaping industry is the largest user of the visa program that allows employers to bring workers from abroad for temporary positions, accounting for 50% of all such visas certified by the government this year.
The visa program, which has a cap, was oversubscribed quickly this year, leaving landscapers across the country unusually short-handed.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
It disgusts me that a paper of the quality that the WSJ USED to be prints this kindergarten emotional tripe.
The market fixes this problem. Adapt or die. Innovate or perish. Get efficient or GO AWAY.
Raise wages, more labor available. If that means your prices have to go up.....GOOD. If that decreases demand....GOOD.
The market is placing the real value on a good or service instead of a subsidized one and is rationing scarce resources to those things the consumer values most.
3 years ago every landscaping biz I saw was nothing but illegals....now, almost all are rough hewn anglos and young black men and dare I say it...women.
I guess our experience with the 16th amendment destroying the global textile industry such that we are now all naked because the slaves are not picking cotton for 3 hots and a cot anymore should have taught us that cheap and/or slave labor is an absolute necessity.
Oh, wait. Never mind.
When my brother was a teenager in the 70s, he mowed lawns. He had his own mower, did an excellent job, charged high prices, and dropped any troublesome customers. He made about $300 a week cash for 30 hours work in the summer. Adjusting for inflation, he would be taking in $1400 a week in 2018.
A bright young American kid could take an opportunity to make some serious $$$$.....if they were thinking and willing to work.
And a well-sharpened scythe is good for cutting down swamp growth.
there are no american teenagers
I met a fellow, awhile back, who put himself through college mowing lawns.
I know as a kid I kept the model ship industry in business for a couple of summers by cutting grass.
“It disgusts me that a paper of the quality that the WSJ USED to be prints this kindergarten emotional tripe.”
Well said.
And right on.
“...almost all are rough hewn anglos and young black men and dare I say it...women....”
A number of crews working our neighborhood are black. A number have females. One young girl was jumping on the pile of leaves and pine straw in the back of a truck so the crew could get more in.
She was fairly small and I told the crew they needed a bigger compacter. They got a kick out of that.
Sounds like an opportunity for the robotics industry.
Pay Americans to do the job. PERIOD.
We have tons of young and uneducated people to do such jobs. QUIT IMPORTING SLAVE LABOR!
A guy and his business partner do some stuff for me periodically at another property that should go on the market soon.
Both US citizens. I’ve met them a couple of times.
I have a friend who has a landscaping business. He’s been at it for 25 years. He legally gets the same Guatamalan guys
every year. He couldn’t get them this year. What he got, usually for a couple weeks were ex cons, drunks, addicts and idiots. Not a single person under 35 applied. Paid $16/hour, $22 if you had a cdl. None did.
Whenever the old house goes away, I would like to put the lawn guys on something more permanent where I am now.
I’m not the neatest grass cutter.
Right now, I can’t write the check for two yards. I don’t mind mowing my own lawn. Too many things going on and the grass winds up low priority.
Yeah and you can’t find a single person in the US who can operate a lawnmower or hedge trimmer, wonder who used to do those jobs for decades before Mexico discovered us?
Pay them to play video games or make stupid challenge videos for YouBoob, and you will get their interest. Otherwise, forget it.
In modern times if you want help with the internet ask a kid.
If you want help with anything else ask a old person.
I grew up around farms and every knewn when migrants arrived because so many cars ended up on blicks without wheels, every year.
Some actually offer cash discounts because credit cards charge the vendors for each transaction. So by paying cash they save that money.
Cut my own grass the last 40 years (since I lived at a place with a yard).
Hit 60 and decided paying $40 every two weeks for a crew of 4 to be in and out in 30 minutes was worth it to me.
They don’t do any detail work (why it’s so cheap) so I’m still puttering around on Saturday doing minor trimming and pruning.
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