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friend of mine owns a small roofing company that has almost 100% pivoted to solar installs and only does a new roof if the old roof needs to be replaced before panels can be put on.

He has jobs booked out 8 months now. Its funny because he tells me his parents were so upset he started a roofing company and didn't go to college and now he makes more per year then most software engineers even at large tech companies.

He also said he's having issues hiring dependable people even though he says he's offering a really good salary+benefits.

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> He also said he's having issues hiring dependable people even though he says he's offering a really good salary+benefits.

It is evidently not good enough. Can you share how much he is offering for back breaking outdoor labor that has a high likelihood of causing musculoskeletal healthcare problems by one’s 50s, and cannot screw around on HN during the day?

It was 'dependable', not 'in general'. That makes a big difference. Subcontractors or people working out of sight on installation work are difficult hires because you need to inspect the work after it has been done and that can be very tricky once it's all sewn up. It also requires people to be there on time and to not cause damage. Hiring for such roles is very difficult, typically you try a large number of people and you end up finding some fraction of that (not a very large fraction) that works out over the longer time.

As for the effects of physical labor on the body: that is true for many industries and occupations. It certainly doesn't give solar a pass but this is not a problem that is exclusive to solar installations (though the risk of injury is high this is in part because the people that try to do the work aim to get it done as quickly as possible and safety be damned). Have a look at the building trades for small time contractors, the situation is quite comparable (especially the roofing part). But don't underestimate the wear and tear of any one of a large number of other 'blue collar' jobs on the body.

> That makes a big difference.

I do not see the difference. He wants a worker of certain quality, and apparently is not offering or able to offer sufficient pay to attract said worker from other options they have.

As for the second paragraph, I never meant to imply roofing or solar was special. As the proportion of younger age population declines, prices for work with lower quality of life will need to rise to compete with work that offers a higher quality of life.

Pay does not guarantee quality. You may simply not be able to find the people (or at least enough of them) that you need, no matter what you are willing to pay. Not everything is a 'free market' problem.

In solar installations the first filter is 'is comfortable working at heights', the second is 'can deliver quality work', the third is 'is able to represent the company well', the fourth is 'will take good care not to damage the clients property' and there are probably others. Within a given region there may simply not be enough people left over in the intersection of all those sets that you are able to supply the companies with sufficient people. There are quite a few industries with similar shortages. Usually over time these even out as industries mature but during a growth spurt (which is exactly what has been happening for the last decade or so) the market may not be able to solve the shortfall by offering more cash, for that to work enough people actually need to exist in that bracket.

>Pay does not guarantee quality. You may simply not be able to find the people (or at least enough of them) that you need, no matter what you are willing to pay. Not everything is a 'free market' problem.

It is obvious there are no guarantees in life. But over the long term, quality correlates with price of the goods are limited in quantity.

It is obvious over the past many decades that the pay to quality of life at work ratio for manual labor has lagged far behind “office”. Therefore, to attract the best or even above median young people to manual labor jobs, they will need to offer a commensurate price to overcome that reputation.

Yes, but you are missing out on the whole economics of solar power. Anyway, I think I've done enough to try to explain why your base assumption that 'quality correlates with price of the goods are limited in quantity' doesn't always hold. What is happening here: there is a backlog for those that are willing to work for a rate that makes the economics of solar work (both for them as subcontractors/employees, their employers and the customers) and outside of that envelope (which is a filter I really should have mentioned) people may be available but unable to get jobs.

If you're arguing that solar power installations are too cheap then you may well have a point but that isn't going to convince a lot of people to change to the point where it is no longer viable. If anything the market is getting more and more competitive as more people enter it. In 2005 I paid about $30,000 for a solar power system that produced 3200 Watt on a good day in March, today I paid about $12000 for a system that produces well over 10KW. Installation costs as a fraction of the total bill has gone up, not down during that time, but in an absolute sense they've gone down because installations are now much simpler and far more routine. Back then every installation was an experiment, now it is routine.

It always seems nice to be able to simplify things to the point where they become soundbites but reality is rarely that simple.

Anyway, I repeat: the accent was on dependable. That does not necessarily correlate with price (though it would nice if it did...).

Parent post said former roofer now makes more than software developer but can't find workers. If they made less(took less for themselves) and offered more to workers they would have a larger pool to hire from. They might even pull in workers from out of state or sponsor someone for a greencard

"Comfortable working at heights" feels like the only part that's somewhat unique, but quality work, friendly and won't trash the place applies to lots of people in lots of industries and trades, and surely you could attract some of them if you paid more.

When someone claims they can't get anyone to work for them "no matter what they are willing to pay", it often turns out they weren't willing to pay all that much. Which solar installation company offers FAANG level total compensation?

I think you're missing the bit that this is a rather competitive market and that if you offered 'FAANG' kind of compensation that nobody would be able to afford solar installations to begin with. The resulting power will have to compete with that generated by the utility company and if the payback time > the lifespan of the installation then it's a no-go.

Sure, but that's a very different discussion, isn't it? It reminds me of restaurants after the lockdowns were lifted who found that their staff had moved on. Turns out, people who are good in a customer facing role and able to handle stress and multi-task and prioritize tasks on the fly are sought after in many industries, and when restaurants said "you can come back now", they didn't much care for it. "I'm ready to pay anything, up to minimum wage" just wasn't able to compete with other companies happily paying more than that.

> back breaking outdoor labor that has a high likelihood of causing musculoskeletal healthcare problems by one’s 50s,

Are you sure about this, I mean non-anecdotally? Much might depend on the type/repetitiveness of the labour, etc,etc, but in general I suspect most HN-fiddlers are (mutatis mutandis)in poorer physical shape than labourers. There's little more dangerous to a mammalian frame, designed for a life of outdoor physical activity, than hours of inactivity. The sofa and car are probably the two most physically dangerous items we've come up with. I started to notice most of my peers having become functionally disabled by car and sofa abuse by about their late 20s.

I think much of that has to do with how you work and maintaining good health. Plus modern tech has helped

For example they small lifting devices that attach to ladders to bring roofing material up, think like a flat elevator that goes up and down. That takes alot of heavy lifting and climbing.

Nail guns and other power tools also reduce exertion in general. I'm not saying it's easy but it's better

i'm not 100% sure but I believe from what I seem to remember around $37 an hour. Also offers overtime.

We had our solar inverter fail (again, it under warranty but a pain). Our original installer is out of business, and a couple companies we talked to said it’s probably a year our before they could send someone. We have someone coming this week (fingers crossed)

The weak points in cheap inverters are the relays that switch the inverter from offline to online mode. It may well be a matter of just replacing that one relay.

Where?

San Diego

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