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Young people don’t want construction jobs
- crooked-v 8y agoSo pay them more.
- rhexs 8y agoNo reason to do that with current immigration "policy", or lack thereof.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tntn 8y agoQuick recap: Article: "there's a labor shortage" 'crooked-v: "So pay them more" 'rhexs: "No need," because there is plenty of cheap labor. Something here doesn't add up.
- conanbatt 8y agoThere isnt a market for that: increased wages would increase house prices and the developer estimates he cant sell the house. If land were cheaper you would see rising wages.
- CydeWeys 8y agoIf there isn't a market for it then there isn't a shortage of labor -- the correct equilibrium point has been found. And yet, they're claiming a shortage. They want to eat their cake and have it too.
- mozumder 8y agoAnd this is how you cause an economy to collapse, by raising inflation. The market doesn’t know what’s good for it. It’s only interest is the immediate short term.
- conanbatt 8y agoIf the amount of workers is down, and the wages are similar or up, then you have a "shortage". In comparison to the point you measure of course. Construction pays rather well actually, though it does have high strain on the body.
- platz 8y ago"a labor shortage that has meant fewer homes built and rising prices" (emhasis added) So are prices rising or aren't they?
- LargeWu 8y agoPrices are definitely rising, but it's debatable whether that's due to a labor shortage.
- conanbatt 8y agoYou can have rising prices and less sales. Its important to look at volume as well. And land probably is what increased prices the most in the share of costs for developing, due to macro economic reasons.
- OldSchoolJohnny 8y agoI think companies have enjoyed historically high profits for a long time now and are simply loath to give that up. What is a reasonable, sustainable level of profit that benefits everyone? It's certainly not what we've seen for the last decade at least. Profits are sky high and wages are deeply stagnant. I've run my own company for decades and I can tell you there isn't a business person alive who will willingly say in public "we're making excellent profits" no matter the situation it's always doom and gloom and the taxes are too high and the wages are too high and there aren't enough qualified candidates etc.
- conanbatt 8y agoProfits are not what make wages go down. Profits make wages go up, because then more gets invested and capital competes for labor. We are also in a decade since the recession of record profits, but that might not be so in the next decade or so (from a macro perspective). Putting a ceiling on profits will not raise wages.
- mozumder 8y agoand increase inflation, punishing the poor and elderly on fixed income the most?
- zaccus 8y agoInflation happens anyway. Unless wages rise faster than inflation, you can't really argue they drive it.
- minikites 8y agoYoung people already can't afford houses so it seems like a self regulating problem.
- platz 8y agoThe market will decide!
- mamurphy 8y agoNon-WSJ Alternative (seems to be an affiliated summary): https://www.marketwatch.com/story/young-people-are-shunning-construction-jobsand-its-hurting-the-housing-market-2018-07-31 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/young-people-are-shunning-...
- linksnapzz 8y agoDrywall rotting on the trucks, for lack of people to hang it.
- dccoolgai 8y agoWhy would they? You've spent the last 30 years telling them not to do those jobs, devaluing them with globalization and de-unionizing them to make sure those jobs don't create any kind of sustainable lifestyle for the people that do them. Someone on HN a while back gave some good advice: whenever you see "people won't do X job", append in your mind the qualifier "for Y underpaid salary/benefits package".
- nickthemagicman 8y agoOn point. You want people just give then good salaryies, benefits, and career growth.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoBut that costs money. Where’s my pool of desperate labor willing to accept medicorce pay with no benefits and job security. /s Welcome to a tight labor market. May it last as long as possible until public policy catches up.
- 0x8BADF00D 8y agoSome construction jobs are better than others. In SF, for example, there are many undersea construction jobs that pay very well. The CTO of Coinbase envisions that construction[0] as an industry is ripe for disruption, reaping the fruits of technology like VR controllable drones[1]. If you make construction like a video game, “young people” will flock to it. [0] https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/tyler-cowen-balaji-srinivasan-tech-bitcoin-crytocurrency-silicon-valley-management-b8db383c9cef https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/tyler-cowen-bala... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W18Z3UnnS_0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W18Z3UnnS_0
- null000 8y ago> If you make construction like a video game, “young people” will flock to it That's not why "young people" aren't getting into construction. Fact is, there are easier jobs that pay about the same that are way easier to get into and won't destroy your body by the time you're 40. Taking the "destroy your body by the time you're 40" out of the equation might help, but the problem with construction definitely isn't the lack of video games.
- tekstar 8y agoThese types of jobs eventually burn out your body. You used to be able to buy a house and grow a family on these wages, and eventually retire. With that no longer being the case, why would anyone with choice choose this option?
- yellowcherry 8y agoMy dad did these jobs his whole life. He's in still in better shape than I've ever been and has a union pension better than anything any company has ever offered me. So.
- NegativeK 8y agoMany states don't have unions.
- throwaway5752 8y agoSo, try to start out as a new person in that area of construction unless it's highly specialized (line work, specialized welding, specialized fabrication, large machine operation with specialized licensure or training...) Generally speaking, the old pension plans are only for those grandfathered in, new pay scales are lower, and hours to get better service time and benefits are higher. Also, watch what companies do in terms of carving off subsidiaries with more of their retirees for intentional bankruptcy (see Patriot Coal). Those benefits will be cut in chapter 11 and then offloaded to the PBGC to be paid by the public.
- PantaloonFlames 8y agoYep. My Father-in-law worked logging, fishing boats, and construction all his life and is now mid-70's, strong as an ox, very fit, very capable and knows how to do just about anything. Still working construction. Lighter jobs, but still. He's lost his hearing, but that's genetic; nothing to do with his labor.
- logfromblammo 8y agoThat's the point. You couldn't get the same deal as he got, because the industry has changed to be more worker-hostile since your father started. No company in your industry has ever offered you anything like his union pension, because no companies in any industry (excepting maybe railroads?) offer anything like his union pension. They all stopped doing it some time between him and you. The young people of today can't go back in time to when your dad was the same age. They have to take the jobs that are offered now. And the companies of now have worked very hard to bust the union influence of the past, so that they can offer crap pay and crap benefits, and shovel most of the risks of working the job onto the worker. Young people are taking one look at that, and deciding to not even take one step down that career path. All this tells me is that young people are not as stupid as companies assumed them to be. The companies offering jobs that don't balance remuneration with worker risk then have to rely on workers with lower expectations, which is to say immigrants from countries with lower quality-of-life norms. They don't look at the work by judging the job in relation to other jobs in the US, but by comparing it to a similar job in their country of origin, and finding that it is X% better. Then the political scene changes, those workers start to dry up, and the companies are screwed--or, more accurately, hoist on their own petards.
- CydeWeys 8y agoWow, the entire article doesn't mention once what the average wage for entry-level construction workers is. That's probably a huge part of the puzzle -- to omit that seems almost intentionally misleading, or at least bad journalism. Also, construction is a job that's notoriously hard on your body. You can't count on being able to do it into your 60s like office work, and one bad accident can end your career in construction (or just flat out end you). And the work itself is hard. Pay needs to be higher than other jobs to compensate for this. I know I'd rather be, say, a Starbucks barista than a construction worker, even if the latter paid a little bit more.
- wccrawford 8y agoSeems like $14.07. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Construction_Laborer/Hourly_Rate/42fc8d3e/Entry-Level https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Construction_Labore... Even "Construction Worker" doesn't bring it up much ($14.75), which means there's nothing in that career directly. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Construction_Worker/Hourly_Rate https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Construction_Worker... The next step in that career is to be a manager or foreman. The Foreman only gets $22.36. ($38k/yr) https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Construction_Foreman/Hourly_Rate https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Construction_Forema... What does a college grad make? $50k/yr. http://time.com/money/collection-post/3829776/heres-what-the-average-grad-makes-right-out-of-college/ http://time.com/money/collection-post/3829776/heres-what-the... Carpenter, handyman and general contractor do better than construction. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Industry=Home_Renovation/Hourly_Rate https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Industry=Home_Renovatio... So yeah, I'm not surprised that people aren't excited about a career in construction.
- PantaloonFlames 8y agoAs with any field, specialized skills command higher pay. Plenty of opportunity to learn a proper skill, like drywall finishing, electrical work, plumbing, or carpentry/cabinetry, and command better than $15/hr in the USA.
- bobthepanda 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- OldSchoolJohnny 8y agoMany of these news stories about labour shortages could alternatively be summarized as "Company expects perpetual huge profits and people to continue to work for next to nothing"
- Kluny 8y agoI'd love to work construction. But every time I've mentioned it to my family they tell me about how it will destroy my knees and back, I'll lose fingers, get hearing damage, head injuries, and the pay is crap compared to the risk. If there was decent workplace safety (my hometown is infamous for it's poor safety standards), and a good pension program where you're expected to want to quit and do something else after 10 years or so, before your body is ruined, then I'd be all about it.
- 49531 8y agoThis is a big reason why unions were created in the first place. Create safer working conditions, and make it possible for people who wear their bodies out can retire.
- bodas 8y agoBut what if I want to retire with a healthy body not a crippled one?
- lotsofpulp 8y agoThen you choose not to perform manual labor. In an ideal situation, the market will pay people a premium for choosing to sacrifice their bodies, assuming everyone is competing on a level playing field and you don't have a huge supply of undereducated workers from another country who have no other options.
- PantaloonFlames 8y agoGood point about the pension (or other retirement provision). You won't lose fingers or lose your hearing if you take proper care. You won't destroy your back if you stay in shape. There are pressures to do the wrong thing. People can resist them. There are risks; this is why people wear hardhats and steel-toed boots on worksites. But the risks can be managed. The pay remains .. a challenge.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
- craig1f 8y agoThe funny thing is, growing up, construction is awe-inspiring. In my last position, I worked across the street from where they were putting up two buildings. We'd gawk over how brave they must be to be up that high on the rafters.
- CydeWeys 8y agoSame. I always love looking at buildings in various stages of construction. I designed and built a shed from scratch five years ago and it was highly enjoyable (and of course a lot of hard work). Just the amount of research to figure out how to do everything properly really satisfies that "geeking out on a new hobby" urge. I think people underestimate how bad the whole "being outside during all four seasons" aspect of these jobs is, though. Most other jobs are indoors, whether they're highly skilled (e.g. SWE) or not (e.g. fry cook).
- jeffreyrogers 8y agoI've been wondering about the long term sustainability of the rise of service jobs in the developed world. If you can work in finance, law, medicine, or tech that's great. Those are all high skill, high paying jobs. Unfortunately, most people aren't cut out for them, largely due to genetic and environmental factors that they have no control over. So what is the rest of the workforce supposed to do? Work in restaurants and other low-skill, low-paying service jobs? That doesn't seem sustainable long term. I worry that by losing goods-producing jobs like manufacturing and construction we are creating a long-term problem where people who can't produce high value services end up living an impoverished life. To some extent you could address this problem by making immigration easier which would help create more low-labor cost, goods-producing jobs, which would in-turn lead to more low-skill service jobs.
- learc83 8y agoWhat's the endgame for construction workers? Everyone can't move into management. Many people's bodies can't handle that kind of manual labor for 40 years, and even if they could construction jobs tend to be insecure. If you want people to make those trade offs you have to pay more. This kind of rhetoric from companies drives me nuts. They push to remove regulations, but when the free market says they have to pay more for labor, suddenly it's not the free market driving up wages, it's a worker shortage. Now we need the government to step in and fix it. You see it most obviously with tech companies pushing for STEM in public schools and the push for more H-1Bs.
- OldSchoolJohnny 8y agoThe end game used to be wealthy retirement because it paid extremely well. And on a side note people's bodies can and do handle that kind of manual labour for 40+ years. Not all of course, some get hurt, some are not cut out for it, but go to any manual work site and you will see older people in their 50's and 60's still in excellent physical shape doing it and younger people doing the really hard shitty jobs since time immemorial.
- learc83 8y ago>older people in their 50's and 60's I edited "most people" to "many people" because I really don't have the numbers. From anecdotal experience from friends and family, I'd think most people won't make it through 40 years of hard manual labor without injury. For every 60 year old you see on a job site, we don't know how many of their peers have stopped working construction.
- krapp 8y agoThe endgame is being replaced by automation.
- Bluecobra 8y agoMaybe it would be something like Tesla's model (highly automated assembly line) but for homes. Manufactured homes have been around for a long time but it's not cool. I would buy a eco-friendly modular home if were awesome.
- johnvega 8y ago3D printing construction tech should be a great way to offset this. Also great for space explorations.
- berbec 8y agoScaling 3D printers to the size and cost require for usefulness is an interesting idea. Otherwise, you're talking about a Lego house.
- stealthmodeclan 8y agoWhy not bring labor on demand from South Asia or Africa.
- null000 8y ago> generally well-paid [1] Three seconds on google suggests that they make <40k in my area, typically. That's definitely not well paid, especially for a job that's fickle and physically demanding. Hell, that's barely above minimum wage (I'm in a $15/hr area, minimum wage is $32k) - I can get an office job tomorrow paying close to the same with basically no effort. As usual, whenever someone blames labor for labor shortages, just look at the wages. If you pay less than a waiter earns with tips while demanding more out of your workers, don't expect people to be lining up at the door. Same goes for farm labor. Same goes for teachers. Same goes for truckers. And so on. [1] - taken from the Non-WSJ alternative in the comments below
- CydeWeys 8y agoGood point about the employment being fickle. Construction workers get screwed in pretty much every recession, the previous one being particularly bad. The only negative that happened to me in 2008 was we didn't get an annual bonus. The average construction worker saw much reduced hours over a period spanning years, or lost their job entirely. There was a huge outflow from the construction sector during that recession, disproportionately large compared to almost every other employment sector.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- gldev3 8y agoAll they have to do is offer 300k a year and unlimited PTO. Ez.
- chuckgreenman 8y agoI love all these "Young people don't want $job_type any more". And then go on to talk about how the jobs don't pay enough, or aren't attracting talent because it's not interesting. Over the past couple of decades the percentage of young people getting degrees has swelled, we've been encouraging everyone to get a degree. Did we expect people to remain in low paying jobs when they can do something else? Those student loans payments aren't making themselves.
- TheCoelacanth 8y agoWhy don't young people want to take difficult and dangerous jobs for 1.5x minimum wage? I can't figure it out.
- burlesona 8y agoThis seems to me primarily about the wages versus cost of living in the places where construction demand is high. I would also point to this as a death spiral for a housing bubble. The article mentions labor commuting from Sacramento to SF where the wages are higher, thus driving up prices in Sacramento due to lack of supply. That kind of domino effect eventually makes it so SF can't get labor because the labor has shifted to live 90' outside of Sacramento and commute there instead. At some point wages do have to go up, driving up costs further in a vicious cycle. I don't know when but I believe another broad housing market collapse is coming.