Posted on 09/23/2021 11:52:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
Our Community just shut down their bus system today because drivers are ill........schools can’t find school bus drivers either. A local dollar store couldn’t open because not enough employees.
$140k per year for a 9-5 job?
Where? Doing what?
Simple. Pay more.
That's a separate issue from a current business owner not being able to find a buyer for their business.
The bus driver situation and local retail store staffing shortages are a combination of retirements of the baby boomers that was greatly accelerated due to COVID since many could have retired already, workers pulling back from second jobs, and two-income families deciding that they prefer to spend time with their children and live off of one income.
This is not a new phenomenon. It’s been worsened by the pandemic but this problem has been around a very long time.
It’s how we ended up business owners 30 years ago. My husband is a very skilled and knowledgeable auto mechanic. Worked for a dealership, did a little sidework in our garage and a hobby race car.
Then one day, a guy that wanted to retire offered to sell him his auto repair business, building and equipment and carry the contract and provide 6 months grace to see if we could make a go of it and come up with a modest 3k down payment.
He had been trying to sell for a decade but nobody interested could get a business loan. He’d tried out a couple of other mechanics, but they couldn’t make it work or didn’t work hard enough.
And therein, is the real problem... People with the desire, skills and work ethic to become self employed and operate a business were scarce 30 years ago and getting scarcer every day.
Public education and entertainment culture has hollowed the workforce into mostly useless eaters.
“$140k per year for a 9-5 job? Where? Doing what?”
Veterinarians
“Now, a new buyer would have to pay off the note to the seller on top of all their operating costs. Too often, it’s just not possible.”
Both practices offered a land contract style arrangement that was near dirt cheap. No takers. Both retiring doctors did not need the money but wanted the business they started to continue. Their legacy.
A girl worked for my wife for 5-6 years while,in HS and college. She graduated from vet school. My wife tried to get her on board as a owner or part owner. She said she did not want the hassles of being an owner and was satisfied with being an employee.
Amazing. The guy is begging fast food workers to come learn his trade so he can practically give them his business and he's getting turned down. There's got to be something else.
FWIW, many of the fast food places (including Chik-Fil-A) are cutting their operating hours because they don't have enough employees to stay open.
“The guy is begging fast food workers to come learn his trade so he can practically give them his business and he’s getting turned down. There’s got to be something else.”
See my post and others above above. No one wants the hassle of being an owner anymore.
Also millennials and below go from job and local to job and local. They do not want to be tied down permanetly.
My nieces and nephews more around from job to job an city to city every few years like gypsies.
The wages of “family doctors” have fallen quite a bit; one explained it was due to low amounts they were allowed to charge. Why put in the time and money, and deal with the debt, to end up in the same place as someone who doesn’t have to go through that?
Yep, my wifes doctor quit his practice and went to work as an employee of a large local hospital. Said he wished he did it 10 years ago. No more hassles.
Owning/managing a business is difficult and stressful, and the government’s recent flexing of its muscles to show how it can control them might make it unappealing. For many young people the American Dream is dead, so they’ll make enough to get by, forego homes and families, and die unencumbered.
I also believe (at least in my area) a lot less people are eating out (at least beyond dollar menus); a mall that opened in the NJ meadowlands sat vacant for years (never even opened) until recently - and now it is a shopping/ENTERTAINMENT center. That discretionary income is gone for many people with families, and NJ had to raise its minimum wage to $12/hour to give some to younger workers.
Same here (with a twist); mine sold his practice to a large hospital system and works in the same office with just a different sign out front!
Large hospitals are swallowing local practices at an incredible pace. Doctors are faced with all the recordkeeping for standard insurance as well as Medicare, malpractice insurance, payrolls, taxes, equipment expenses, building leases, etc. They give up some control of their practice when selling to the hospital but much of their other headaches are reduced or disappear.
The hospital can afford to buy insurance “cheaply” with large deductibles, provide a staff for helping with records and taxes and payrolls and HR services.
I admire my own doctor who has held out and not sold her practice, but I suspect that she may not be able to hold out much longer.
I have no problem with the "normal" hassles of running a business. I thrive on them, in fact, and deal with them in a meticulous and efficient manner. However, I find the administrative nonsense of dealing with employees to be totally unproductive and exhausting.
I'm dropping my last employees from the payroll and using only contractors from this point forward. No more payroll records, no more payroll taxes, no more payroll service fees, no more worker's compensation insurance, no more tracking mandatory time off under state law (even for part time employees), etc. I'm done with all that sh!t.
"$140k per year for a 9-5 job? Where? Doing what?"
#LERN2CODE LOL
Why not just hire someone to run the company for a few years, give them a reasonable salary plus a profit share over a certain % and sell it in a few years?
Most coders in most areas of the country don’t get that much.
Full-stack web developers, maybe.
HeHeheHe. GARY!
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