This booming economy is killing us.

Atla

Atla

Pew Pew! Vroom Vroom!
Joined
Nov 23, 2010
Location
NC
I don't know about everyone elses place of work...

But our business is through the roof and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel for employees. I think we are slipping job applications in with the HS graduates diplomas this year.

I'm seeing Baxter's advertising at Walmart gas pumps. There's another local place offering a $500 sign on bonus. And another who is offering free breakfast.

Heck, I hear even the weirdo's with four year degrees in Racoon Gender Studies can get a job now. And not just at Burger King.

And there is no end in sight until 'maybe' 2024.
 
I talked to a small husband and wife company who had to dump Obamacare a while back because they could not afford it. They said they now have to turn down work from larger companies because they are all booked up. They say the larger companies are confident enough to now do the things they couldn't do before with the extra money they have.
 
We are turning away work daily...and we've NEVER refused work in 50 years

Had an architect call last week with a perfect analogy: "I know you're probably trying drink from the same firehose the rest of us are......(if you weren't you wouldn't be worth talking to about work).......but could you possibly squeeze us in before Christmas" [potential downtown hi-rise renovation]
We're completely covered up for the foreseeable future. And we have 4 headhunters working for us right now desperately trying to find candidates. Our issue is no one wants to live in Winston-Salem. If they're young, they want Charlotte or Raleigh for tinder matches, and if they're old, they want the beach
 
we hire most of our folks thru temp agencies. same issue. can not find folks. a year ago you would call them and they would have 5 candidates right now. today you call them and they call back in 5 days with 1 maybe. when the maybe finally shows up they can't seem to get to work on time 2 days in a row, have a court date next tuesday and their day care calls once a week to come pick up a sick kid. needless to say i am working the daylights out of my long term folks.
 
It is the same problem in the industry that I work in (Class 8 truck). BOTH truck manufacturing plants are working two shifts and fully booked until early 2019. If you order a new truck today, you are going to have to wait about 9+ months before it will be built. Some of our suppliers are struggling to keep up with part demand for the plants too.
 
We aren't turning away work, but the cities I go to are having trouble fulfilling the labor calls because so many unions have their guys on long term projects and not the 2-4 day I&D work. A month or so ago I got hassled and threatened to be kicked out of the convention center in Chicago for doing electrical work in a booth, last week the same steward told me to just do what I needed to because he had a 110 man call in and was only able to get 20 guys because the rest were on construction projects in downtown Chicago. "Man, I know what we talked about last month, just do what you have to because I cannot get to you guys in time". FYI, having to hire "licensed electricians" to hang TV's and plug in stem lights is a racket anyway.
 
Atla said:
I don't know about everyone elses place of work...

But our business is through the roof and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel for employees. I think we are slipping job applications in with the HS graduates diplomas this year.

I'm seeing Baxter's advertising at Walmart gas pumps. There's another local place offering a $500 sign on bonus. And another who is offering free breakfast.

Heck, I hear even the weirdo's with four year degrees in Racoon Gender Studies can get a job now. And not just at Burger King.

And there is no end in sight until 'maybe' 2024.
Click to expand...

My guess is 2020.....
 
It's a double edged sword, we just finished a 100,000 sq/ft expansion, spent $10mil on new equipment, and looking to break ground on another 50,000 sq/ft expansion and $3mil in equipment by the end of the year. As is, the first expansion doubled our capacity. The work is definitely there, which is good. However, the bottom 15% of our production employees are a perpetuatual revolving door. We can barely staff a full first shift with a quality headcount. Luckily, the equipment will improve efficiency 50%, but that still means we need quite a few more heads to utilize capacity...and the BoD wants us to start a fully staffed second shift...HA.
 
Atla said:
I don't know about everyone elses place of work...

But our business is through the roof and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel for employees. I think we are slipping job applications in with the HS graduates diplomas this year.

I'm seeing Baxter's advertising at Walmart gas pumps. There's another local place offering a $500 sign on bonus. And another who is offering free breakfast.

Heck, I hear even the weirdo's with four year degrees in Racoon Gender Studies can get a job now. And not just at Burger King.

And there is no end in sight until 'maybe' 2024.
Click to expand...

You guys are probably getting so much work because everyone is getting dehydrated from being overworked and needing more saline bags. :lol:

BTW, I did a bunch of design work on the mechanical systems for your new project there. If it sucks though, it was the guy sitting next to me. ;)
 
Caver Dave said:
I agree... the pool of "qualified & willing" is down to "will show up & mediocre".
But, on the other side of the coin... a lot of the employers whining are still offering the same old weak ass wages they offered 10 years ago
Click to expand...

I'm not an economist, but I have to think inflation starts to kick in eventually when employers are forced to raise wages or face losing employees.
 
The last two people that we hired quit after 2-6 months. Neither person was worth a shit and rather than try hard and learn....they left for another job.
 
Blaze said:
You guys are probably getting so much work because everyone is getting dehydrated from being overworked and needing more saline bags. :lol:

BTW, I did a bunch of design work on the mechanical systems for your new project there. If it sucks though, it was the guy sitting next to me. ;)
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I'm one of the select few in Marion who has never worked at Baxters. :)
 
People always talking about bringing down unemployment... how it's great for everybody to have a job, etc. Like this is a sign of a fantastic economy (and in some ways, it is).

But the plain fact is, there is a certain segment of the population who is just unemployable (even of those seeking). Historically when the % gets much < 5, people have this problem - employees suck, and THAT ends up being the rate-limiting step for growth.
 
Atla said:
I'm one of the select few in Marion who has never worked at Baxters. :)
Click to expand...

Ah, gotcha. Just assumed since you said something about Baxter in your post. I figured everyone out there worked for them. :lol:
 
Not speaking from a business owner standpoint but rather from a different perspective; things are great, but finding someone worth a shit to hire on to fill slots is not easy. I've never trained (or attempted to train) more people to do what I was assigned to last month than I have just recently. People are getting stupid. Very stupid.
 
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It doesn't help that we have a large segment of the population who are worthless and refuse to work.

A huge amount of people lack the dignity and pride in being able to support themselves and their family and choose instead to wallow in their crappy homes, in their filthy PJs, taking meth and breeding like rats, while collecting a tax payer funded check and binge watching Netflix on their 70" Plasma TV.
 
Wait, so first you were scraping the bottom of the barrel for employees, but now people are worthless and refuse to work? Which is it? Are there qualified candidates for employment or not? Do you want to hire them or not?
 
UTfball68 said:
It's a double edged sword, we just finished a 100,000 sq/ft expansion, spent $10mil on new equipment, and looking to break ground on another 50,000 sq/ft expansion and $3mil in equipment by the end of the year. As is, the first expansion doubled our capacity. The work is definitely there, which is good. However, the bottom 15% of our production employees are a perpetuatual revolving door. We can barely staff a full first shift with a quality headcount. Luckily, the equipment will improve efficiency 50%, but that still means we need quite a few more heads to utilize capacity...and the BoD wants us to start a fully staffed second shift...HA.
Click to expand...
Damn...that race shop must've taken off!
 
grapehead said:
Wait, so first you were scraping the bottom of the barrel for employees, but now people are worthless and refuse to work? Which is it? Are there qualified candidates for employment or not? Do you want to hire them or not?
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...It's two separate observations.

First, as stated by almost everyone in this thread, all we seem to find now is sub-par candidates.

Second, there is a large segment of people in this nation who do not want to work. Instead they are content to suck down resources and contribute nothing in return except future generations of worthless people. I'm not saying I want them as they are, but as they should be. If their only options were work or starve, I guarantee you we would have access to more motivated individuals who want a steady paycheck.
 
But if they aren't qualified, I fail to see how the level of motivation plays in. You can want someone to be able to do whatever job all day long, but if they have an iq of 80 and no skills or training, it just ain't gonna happen.
 
grapehead said:
Wait, so first you were scraping the bottom of the barrel for employees, but now people are worthless and refuse to work? Which is it? Are there qualified candidates for employment or not? Do you want to hire them or not?
Click to expand...

It's both, all you got left is the turds, so you grab a few handfuls and hope like hell you can polish a couple, flush the rest...
 
grapehead said:
But if they aren't qualified, I fail to see how the level of motivation plays in. You can want someone to be able to do whatever job all day long, but if they have an iq of 80 and no skills or training, it just ain't gonna happen.
Click to expand...

Many jobs are trainable if they applicant is willing to learn.

They still won't be rocket scientists. But where I work, we can take HS graduates or GED holders and in three years they'll be making $40,000 if they can do basic math. If not, they'll still max out around $32,000. All training that is needed we provide.
 
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