Just another excuse to party.
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 ...
Directly a result of Trump being President and fewer people breaking into the country.
Do you still want someone else in 2020?
“Needs to buy some equipment manufactured in the US and cut her own yard. Or move to an apartment.”
My fiercely independent 85 year old mother still mows her own 1.5 acre yard weekly.
Whenever I try to mow for her she gives me “The Look” and asks “do you think I’m some kind of crippled old lady?”
Ms Dozzi needs get off her butt and mow her own damned grass.
This story was on our local news stations. The owner had a auction and sold a few of his trucks and other equipment. He stated in the local news he only got one reply to his want ads.
“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.”
You know what? You’re two years older than me. I get in the best shape pushing a crappy a$$ed lawn mower around twice a week in the spring and once a week in the summer. Get off your saggy a$$ and do it yourself. Get a riding lawn mower if you need to do that.
“the grass grew so high it became “unsightly” around her 10,000 square-foot brick home set on 3 acres”
10,000 sq. ft. home? Poor baby.
Maybe she has a grandson or two who don’t want to be cut out of her will.
Many teens need a job; many teens need to work, whether they or their parents admit it or not. Citizen teens in my day filled most of the part-time and short term jobs.
The topic is local, not national. You assume that there are Americans in Pittsburgh that are available, able, and not druggies or those that can't be depended on to come to work every day.
The testimony of the company is that there are not
The answer always proposed is inflated wages. There is no real evidence inflating wages at the bottom will solve the problem of laziness
‘What Americans? There are no Americans to do these jobs.
You assume a local labor pool that apparently does not exist.’
That is true in many areas. Our grand kids and grand nephews and nieces this past summer had at least one job getting @ least minimum wages. Some had two or three jobs.
Their parents told them, like we told their parents and were told by our parents: “You want spending money or gasoline money, get a job and pay for it!”
I live in that area and I can attest that the lawns are looking pretty nice for late August. Usually this time of year, the lawns are getting burnt and yellowish as August is usually dry and hot but we've had heavy rains all summer and coolish weather so everything is as lush as it was in June.
My landscaper comes as scheduled and I've never heard of any kind of landscaping shortages.
Today’s American kids are in so many sports activities that go year around and every day, that they do not/cannot develop simple skills such as working for neighbors, like cutting lawns, clearing snow, etc.
We would have enough people to do low skill jobs if our kids were allowed time to earn a bit of money as young entrepreneurs. Of course, it wouldn’t fill in for regular jobs like landscaping, but it would solve some other problems.
Buy a lawn mower and cut it yourself
If someone is so damned concerned about ‘druggies’, to hell with them. Zero sympathy for anyone who both bitches about not being able to find people and drug tests, they can go the hell out of business for all I care.
Yes, combine decent wages with work requirements. Able to work and won’t? Starve.
The testimony of that company means no more to me than anything Hillary ever said. Just another person who doesn’t want to pay Americans a fair wage.
Just another excuse to party.
I cut grass while I was in college. Acres and acres and acres of grass. I got exercise, fresh air, made really good money for that time, and by Friday and Saturday nights I was too exhausted to go out and get into trouble.
See, you are a worker and don’t matter. Employers seek people that will work. I expect that down deep there is a union backgroud
Those that are druggies are worthless as employees as are those who don’t come to work and those that are just plain lazy.
Just because they are American doesn’t mean they are worth a damn as employees
There have to be high school & college kids who would love the summer jobs.
Are we raising a country of lazy sissies or what?
The grass is there at dawn when it is cooler. Cut it then.
IF town ordinances prevent that, he needs to realize that he is heading for a lifetime of jobs ‘where it is too hot’.
Good luck with him. You are going to need it.
ALL the insurance companies are demanding drug tests. Too many ‘accidents’ with drugs involved.
I would NEVER hire someone who cannot pass a drug test.
I don’t need the Liability headaches.
People who are concerned about if someone is, or isn’t a ‘druggie’ need to go out of business and go to hell. Good riddance. None of anyone’s business what someone does after quitting time.
Don’t use, but have more respect for partiers than jack boot licking busybodies.
Best comment, thank you!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.