I’m a small remodeling contractor, and there are few young, hardworking English speaking Americans who are willing to work hard in the trades. They want to make $25 an hour for standing around. There is always a large group of Hispanic guys in the Home Depot parking lot who will work cheap. I refuse to hire them because I refuse to hire illegals, and I would never bring someone who I don’t know to a customer’s home. For the most part, I work by myself, taking and pricing jobs accordingly. Hispanic labor has driven labor rates down.
“I’m a small remodeling contractor, and there are few young, hardworking English speaking Americans who are willing to work hard in the trades. They want to make $25 an hour for standing around. There is always a large group of Hispanic guys in the Home Depot parking lot who will work cheap. I refuse to hire them because I refuse to hire illegals, and I would never bring someone who I don’t know to a customer’s home. For the most part, I work by myself, taking and pricing jobs accordingly. Hispanic labor has driven labor rates down.”
I live in Texas and until a few years ago I worked as a cabinet maker. Not a serviceman or one of the guys on a production line putting tenon A into mortise B, but a cabinet maker and woodworker who knew the tools and the materials and how to read a blueprint and all the things associated with woodworking and cabinetry.
I gave it up because the wages were actually falling and this was still in the building boom when I was repeatedly told that I should be happy with $10.50 an hour and that the contractors had to hire armies of illegals to keep their prices low, even tho I never saw the price of anything go anywhere but through the roof.
I remember one job interview where the shop forman was up against a really bad deadline. He told me that he had 15 employees, who BTW were all illegals, but not single one of them had skills.
I told him I was interested and I had been making $15 an hour but was willing to start at $12 an hour.
He told me he could start me at $8.50 an hour with an option for a .50 cent an hour raise after 6 months. Then he said that was still a dollar an hour better than flipping burgers.
I agreed it was a dollar an hour better than a burger flipper made and then suggested he go hire a burger flipper.
He was actually kind of POd that I didn’t take the job.
I’ve certainly seen my share of unmotivated workers, but I’ve seen just that many who did want to learn it and get it right.
Brother, you and I are living the same nightmare. I’ve been dealing with everything you mentioned in your post for well over a decade now.
Sometimes I think you won’t be able to find a native born American in the trades in another ten years.
Get a good ladder...It worked wonders for me...