Posted on 04/26/2021 4:41:52 AM PDT by Prov1322
Despite increasing numbers of initial unemployment claims across the region, local business and industry leaders say the jobs are available but no one is applying for them. The 60 members of the Greater Rome Existing Industry Association report some 400-plus open positions but say additional federal unemployment benefits and stimulus payments give some possible candidates no incentive to work.
“There are hundreds of jobs here, we just can’t find people to fill them. I was at the GREIA meeting this week and all manufacturers were saying the same thing,” says David Newby, President and CEO of Profile Custom Extrusion in Rome, which has approximately 180 employees.
Profile Custom Extrusion has a ‘Now Hiring’ banner up at their facility along U.S. 27 in Rome. Hometown photo. “In my 40 years here, I have never seen anything like this. We have always had a strong workforce in Rome. We do know the stimulus has created part of the problem. With the federal unemployment, folks can make over $16 an hour not working. They don’t have to search for jobs right now…there is no incentive to work.”
The state’s unemployment benefits top out at $365 a week, while the federal government adds $300 a week. That adds up to the equivalent of $16.63 per hour for a 40-hour week, which in some cases is more than they made when they were working.
According to the latest statistics from the Georgia Department of Labor, the initial unemployment claims increased 29% (32,102) in March to 143,410 compared to 111,308 claims in February 2020. Locally:
Floyd had 1,260 initial claims in March, up 26.8% over February. Bartow had 1,671 initial claims in March, up 22.1% Gordon was up 16.1% in March with 1,018 claims. Polk was down 8.6% with 502 claims in March compared to 549 in February. Chattooga was down 3.5% in March with 136 claims vs. 141 in February. For more: Statistics Pam Powers-Smith, director of Business and Industry at Rome-Floyd Chamber, says she has been surveying both large and small businesses on workforce and labor issues. She says all areas of employers are having trouble finding workers, including restaurants, medical, manufacturing, government and education.
“The types of positions that are available are quite honestly all over the spectrum. I think some people make the assumption that it’s only entry level positions but the survey said it was all…entry level, middle management, top level management, customer service, skilled labor, degreed and certified,” she says.
The chamber has a job site (www.romega.com) that is updated daily. It currently has 122 jobs listed. Powers-Smith says it gets some 10,000 hits each month.
Newby says his company has 12 open positions right now and could bring in more but can’t grow until they fill the immediate openings.
“We have both production jobs and management positions as well. We are having trouble just finding people who will show up. We will bring in seven employees just to keep one of them,” he says.
Jennifer Cole, Human Resources manager at F&P Georgia, says her company has 20 immediate openings and is doing “anything and everything to recruit new employees.”
“We have never had this difficulty staffing before. It is not because of our work environment. F&P is a great place to work; we have great benefits and wages. We have 14 million hours worked without a lost-time accident, so we have a safe environment,” she says.
“We’re finding it hard to recruit when we’re learning people would rather stay home and draw unemployment. As long as people are making $15 an hour with unemployment, they will keep drawing it…that is what we’re fighting against…I have never seen it like this in the 20 years I’ve been in the industry.”
John Cothran, Operations Manager at Brugg Lifting North America and chair of GREIA, says his small company has had trouble filling his vacant shop positions.
“Applicants are almost non-existent. Sometimes it is weeks before an agency sends an applicant our way,” he says. “We are certainly not on the upper end for starting wages. However, even some of those businesses with the higher starting wages have the same problem. I am sure the pandemic has played a significant role here but it seems that since COVID, workers can make almost the same staying at home.
“Fortunately, since we are a small company, we are maintaining by all of us covering all the business needs…we all wear a lot of hats. It is a daily struggle and until we are fully staffed, business growth maybe challenging.”
Manufacturers are not the only ones struggling to find workers. Local businessman and developer Wayne Robinson owns several Bojangles restaurants in Northwest Georgia including locations in Cartersville, Calhoun, Adairsville, Summerville and Hiram. He says it has been “extremely hard” to find employees.
“We have ‘Now Hiring’ signs up at all the businesses and have had no applicants. I think every fast-food and quick service restaurant is looking for employees,” he says.
“It is frustrating to operate with such low staff levels. That’s the reason we haven’t been able to open the dining rooms at Bojangles back up…there is not enough staff on shift to cover both dining room and drive-through. We have even had to close earlier because we don’t have staff. It has made us be creative in stretching employees out.
“Restaurants typically have 35-50 employees and everyone is fighting for same folks. The stimulus checks have taken away the incentive to look for jobs. So many are content not to work. But once the stimulus money evaporates, I look for the job market to return.
Hann with JWH Transport “In the meantime, we are offering higher salaries and entry rates…but it’s very frustrating to be a business owner right now.”
Nick Hann, owner of JWH Transport in Rome, also is having a tough time filling transportation jobs for truck drivers.
“We are not exempt…it’s hitting every industry,” he says. “We are a smaller transportation company with 40 trucks. We typically average at least 10 applications per month but we have had maybe 10 applications in the last 90 days…about a 60% decrease.
“Trucking as a whole is hard to find employees because there are lots of guys that hold a CDL (Commercial Drivers License) but getting them qualified is another story because of a bad driving record or drugs.”
“We are constantly hiring, even when the market is doing well. We need at least two drivers right now.”
I will, thank you very much. I spend a lot of time with friends, associates and mentees on their personal finance and assisting them to get there as well (not necessarily at 45-46, but well into 7 digits when they turn 60-65). I wish the “millionaire next door” was required reading for every HS and college senior as personal finance is a bit of a passion for me.
So you started at zero and can retire at 46? Married with kids? Now that doesn’t happen very often...
Oh you know it was just voted into law. 8.65 dollars and you are bragging. Pretty pathetic. And 10 dollars 5 months from now. Lol. Bless your heart.
I have moved a lot of my investments to value and raw materials based stocks. I am looking at real estate investments but a conversation with a banker friend has slowed me down on that one.
Real estate is set to tank worse than 2008 with an enormous backlog of delayed foreclosures. Right now they can’t foreclose or evict people but when Congress removes that restriction it will be a mess. A lot of landlords are suffering too from unpaid rents they will never collect. I was told about a large apartment complex that sold in the last month at a 40% discount because the family who owned it could not deal with all the uncollected rents and just wanted out.
See post 204. Not sure why it didn’t put you in the reply to field.
Married for ~15, but I do not have kids. About 2 years after I dropped out of college, I got my motivation back and have worked ~65 hrs/week since then, plus spend a decent chunk of my personal time learning things online - largely personal finance, business acumen, real estate, etc. I later went back and finished my undergrad while working (more than) full time and then got my masters also while working (more than) full time about 9 years. Best sites I tell my mentees to visit to improve yourself and your own balance sheet is financialsamurai.com and mrmoneymustache.com, plus read the millionaire next door. Life changing for me. While most of my peers are spending 85-90% of their income, I am saving about 65% of my after tax earnings and investing it and as my income has continued to go up, save about 90% of the increased after tax income.
It was $7.60 in Florida in 2014. I think you are a very confused person - the jump to $10 per hour will be the first jump associated with the new $15/hr bill. But, we have zero employees in the entire state of florida making below $10/hr currently and we are not even in the top half of payers for jobs in the hotel industry. We only have a small handful of part timers in FL making less than $12 at the moment with average wage in FL over $15 for hour non-salaried folks.
The other side of that equation is firms like Blackstone, etc are literally sitting on billions of dollars waiting for that to happen and swoop up and buy them. They will not be available long. And that Multi-family seller did not use a broker or a good broker at least or he’d have received what it was worth in 2019. Even hotels with revenue down 80-90% from 2019 levels are selling at only a 15-20% discount to pre-pandemic pricing. The market is so on fire for multi-family right now they are looking at buying extended stay hotels with kitchens to convert to multi-family all over the country at massive premiums.
Well there you go. How much do you charge your Mentees?
Kids wouldn't really have changed much - it would lower my tax costs a solid amount and we'd have taken a lot fewer international vacations. Probably at worst case would have delayed my retirement a half year to a year.
How much do you charge your Mentees?
None, of course.
Supply and demand a foreign concept to you? If you don’t have applicants willing to work slave wages, you raise them. Otherwise shut down. You clearly failed economics.
And and if you did, it be without employees as many of your types are finding out.
What is the tax difference on those two incomes?
I suspect that the ‘don’t work incentive’ is much larger than being claimed.
There are typically ‘cliffs’ in the law that are not being factored in. Such as when the ‘free health care’ stops.
Clearly you have no idea that your "supply and demand" has taken on an entirely new meaning. None productive people are demanding money and the govt is supplying it with MY TAXPAYER dollars.
Enough with the BS slave wages accusations. If you think these are slave wages go live in a country with real slave wages and you will see how well you have it here.
Huge - especially since the first $10k of unemployment income is tax free on top of the initial $12.5k of all income.
Please rewrite your post, preferably in English this time.
The seller in that case was a family that had inherited the properties when the father died. The place was crazy with unpaid rent and mounting expenses the kids didn’t want to deal with. It was a big complex and the sale was in the tens of millions. I don’t know the details beyond that, it isn’t in my area, it was just told to me by the friend because their bank handled the transaction. The advice was to follow the smart money and wait for Congress.
I live in a rural area but we have a large renter base with a college in town and a military base nearby, but I am not hearing any stories of rentals being scooped up by big players. I was looking at some houses next to campus asking in the $100k range, some already subdivided into apartments. Land prices, on the other hand, are up over 500% in the 8 years since I moved here, now running over $10k/acre. I think that is driven by people from the nearest Democrat run, minority heavy city 45 minutes away looking for a place to escape to.
I have it on good authority that BX is focusing on 18 hour cities so anything that’s remotely rural wouldn’t be included. Anything around $100k wouldn’t even be on their radar. Due diligence cost alone is just too high to justify unless a lot in one deal. I am not that familiar with land pricing.
We have a couple board members that run or on boards for multi fam REITs and they are doing great. I also get a lot of that chatter from a few Research analysts that also cover hotels as well. I think if your friend had hired JLL or CBRE he’d probably have sold for a lot more. Also depends on timing too. The transaction market went nuts late last year in CRE, so if he sold or started before then he just was unlucky on timing
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