Hiring skilled labor in the cabinet business is quite difficult, also. In many ways, our industry now relies on what are essentially apprenticeships where you s

Hiring skilled labor in the cabinet business is quite difficult, also. In many ways, our industry now relies on what are essentially apprenticeships where you start as a basic worker and learn skills on the job. Unfortunately, the "learn skills on the job" isn't necessarily part of the employment contract, but an unspoken perk. And the employers frequently need part-time work, or can't afford to maintain full-time employees under training. Having a system that produced trained woodworkers would make this labor market much better, since most small businesses can't really afford apprentices. They could, however, likely do well to have fully trained employees available. Of the handful of cabinet makers I know, all but one of them were hobbyist woodworkers first. The one who wasn't is Swiss where he grew up and was trained in cabinetmaking instead of university.