4 ms·

If labor is in short supply for blue collar jobs, shouldn't wages rise significantly? Doesn't make sense to me

WalterBright 5y ago
It seems whenever I've had to hire someone to do electrical work, roofing work, water heater replacement, etc., the bill is fantastic. I watch them work, and it doesn't take that long or seem so difficult. Someone is making pots of money off of it. (I've watched the cable guy, the plumber, etc., at work. Next time I needed a similar job done, I did it myself. I even bought the same tools the cable guy was using. The guy replacing the water heater noted that it had a new pressure relief valve in it. I said yeah, it started leaking a month prior and I replaced it. He was shocked, and I said all it was was unscrewing the old one and putting it a new one with a bit of teflon tape. The whole job was $27, for the new valve from Amazon. I'm pretty good at sweating pipes, too!)
- skinkestek 5y ago
  A friend of mine who has done well for himself in retail and later real estate said at one point that if he were to start over he'd consider plumbing: Getting a good plumber in his area was hard so those who were could both be picky and expensive. Of my other close friends friends those who did best so far did by doing well in sales (graduating to running their own), blue collar mechanic (team lead -> manager -> get some spre time, starts investing and building his own) and a number of people going the carpentry to real estate route. One of those who has done well has gone via college/university.
- yen223 5y ago
  > I watch them work, and it doesn't take that long or seem so difficult. Someone is making pots of money off of it. One could say the same about software development work. Perhaps even rightfully so.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Not really. I've never had plumber training, and yet figured out how to do it by watching them. Writing software isn't learned that way. I've also never met an electrician who knew what inductive coupling was. They just followed the building code. They had no idea why. The roofers didn't know what galvanic corrosion was, either, and I had them pull all the nails out that were incompatible with the flashing material and redo it. (I talked to the contractor in advance about this, and he ignored me and use the wrong nails anyway.)
xyzzyz 5y ago
That depends on how much the buyers can bear. If we had a serious shortage of cooks and waiters, we wouldn’t all have $50 dollar lunches to cover their wages, we’d rather collectively just eat out less often.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Or eat in cafeterias that used labor more efficiently like in some expensive European countries. I can bus my own table.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    Either way, this increased efficiency would mean fewer food service jobs.
smsm42 5y ago
There's also elasticity of prices. There's a limit of how much people would pay for a job. I.e. if you have a washing machine repair technician, you can't charge as much as a new washing machine costs for repair, because then people would just go and buy a new one instead. There's some point for many jobs where it's better to not do the job or find some alternative way of achieving the same. Of course, if your roof is collapsing, you don't have a choice, but in many cases you do. So you would either not do it, or postpone it as long as you can - thus reducing the income of the job supplier.
asdff 5y ago
Wages are high. Infrastructure costs more to build in this country than it ever has before because of labor shortages in the trades. There are literally only a handful of companies in the country who can do things like construct a light rail line, something that used to be routine a century ago.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >There are literally only a handful of companies in the country who can do things like construct a light rail line, something that used to be routine a century ago. I'm guessing there are vested corporate interests and lobbying in keeping things like this (basically, the status quo), as it means those few companies get to charge the state however much they want, while paying their workers peanuts as there's nearly no competition for the workers to jump ship to. Ah, the "benefits" of consolidation. The funny thing is, in Europe we have bridges built by the Romans that still stand, and 30 year old bridges that need to be rebuilt because the contractor cut way too many corners to squeeze a buck here and there.
SyzygistSix 5y ago
As well as better working conditions. Young people aren't stupid. They can see how older people have just become accustomed to an insufferable grind. Sure, you can not go full-blown consumerist and then you only have to endure 30 years of it rather than 40+. But to many, that is still a shit deal. How about a decent work-life balance? Young people look around and it is seldom to be seen in the US.

It seems whenever I've had to hire someone to do electrical work, roofing work, water heater replacement, etc., the bill is fantastic. I watch them work, and it doesn't take that long or seem so difficult. Someone is making pots of money off of it. (I've watched the cable guy, the plumber, etc., at work. Next time I needed a similar job done, I did it myself. I even bought the same tools the cable guy was using. The guy replacing the water heater noted that it had a new pressure relief valve in it. I said yeah, it started leaking a month prior and I replaced it. He was shocked, and I said all it was was unscrewing the old one and putting it a new one with a bit of teflon tape. The whole job was $27, for the new valve from Amazon. I'm pretty good at sweating pipes, too!)

skinkestek 5y ago
A friend of mine who has done well for himself in retail and later real estate said at one point that if he were to start over he'd consider plumbing: Getting a good plumber in his area was hard so those who were could both be picky and expensive. Of my other close friends friends those who did best so far did by doing well in sales (graduating to running their own), blue collar mechanic (team lead -> manager -> get some spre time, starts investing and building his own) and a number of people going the carpentry to real estate route. One of those who has done well has gone via college/university.
yen223 5y ago
> I watch them work, and it doesn't take that long or seem so difficult. Someone is making pots of money off of it. One could say the same about software development work. Perhaps even rightfully so.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Not really. I've never had plumber training, and yet figured out how to do it by watching them. Writing software isn't learned that way. I've also never met an electrician who knew what inductive coupling was. They just followed the building code. They had no idea why. The roofers didn't know what galvanic corrosion was, either, and I had them pull all the nails out that were incompatible with the flashing material and redo it. (I talked to the contractor in advance about this, and he ignored me and use the wrong nails anyway.)

xyzzyz 5y ago

That depends on how much the buyers can bear. If we had a serious shortage of cooks and waiters, we wouldn’t all have $50 dollar lunches to cover their wages, we’d rather collectively just eat out less often.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Or eat in cafeterias that used labor more efficiently like in some expensive European countries. I can bus my own table.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  Either way, this increased efficiency would mean fewer food service jobs.

smsm42 5y ago

There's also elasticity of prices. There's a limit of how much people would pay for a job. I.e. if you have a washing machine repair technician, you can't charge as much as a new washing machine costs for repair, because then people would just go and buy a new one instead. There's some point for many jobs where it's better to not do the job or find some alternative way of achieving the same. Of course, if your roof is collapsing, you don't have a choice, but in many cases you do. So you would either not do it, or postpone it as long as you can - thus reducing the income of the job supplier.

asdff 5y ago

Wages are high. Infrastructure costs more to build in this country than it ever has before because of labor shortages in the trades. There are literally only a handful of companies in the country who can do things like construct a light rail line, something that used to be routine a century ago.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>There are literally only a handful of companies in the country who can do things like construct a light rail line, something that used to be routine a century ago. I'm guessing there are vested corporate interests and lobbying in keeping things like this (basically, the status quo), as it means those few companies get to charge the state however much they want, while paying their workers peanuts as there's nearly no competition for the workers to jump ship to. Ah, the "benefits" of consolidation. The funny thing is, in Europe we have bridges built by the Romans that still stand, and 30 year old bridges that need to be rebuilt because the contractor cut way too many corners to squeeze a buck here and there.

SyzygistSix 5y ago

As well as better working conditions. Young people aren't stupid. They can see how older people have just become accustomed to an insufferable grind. Sure, you can not go full-blown consumerist and then you only have to endure 30 years of it rather than 40+. But to many, that is still a shit deal. How about a decent work-life balance? Young people look around and it is seldom to be seen in the US.