American hard hat jobs have the highest level of open positions ever recorded
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
I have been running a tugboat company for a few years now and there is definitely a labor shortage. Licensed tugboat captains are retiring/dying faster than new licenses are being granted. The very fastest we could theoretically turn an unlicensed deckhand into a licensed captain is three years of sea time. We are experiencing a shortage of labor.
At the end of the day, industries are principally responsible for the health of their workforce overall. If there is a shortage, it is a failure of leadership.
That is why “labor shortage” is such a mealy-mouthed term. It treats labor as external to the process, something someone else is supposed to “provide”
It is not just pay rate. Where I can match pay rates, I cannot match lifestyle. U.S. citizens and green card holders have more attractive jobs available to them that do not require being away from family for weeks at a time. (e.g., software development)
Acceptance of that lifestyle is partially contingent on the pay. I am sure that plenty of people would be willing to spend long stretches away from home at work if they were being paid $1m.
That's exactly the point everyone is trying to make to you. That ultimately most labor shortages, unless caused by extremely rapid change in conditions (such as a law being introduced with only weeks notice that dramatically changes the regulatory landscape with no time to adapt) are usually pay shortages.
Labor shortage has long been used as a weasel phrase to imply that it's the fault of the workers/labor that companies can't fill positions. That's what the pushback is on. If your business can't find enough workers, you or your industry aren't offering enough financial incentive to have people work for you. You need to offer more money. And if you can't because it's not financially viable? Well...seems the free market has spoken and said that your business is not viable anymore. As the kids say these days, 'sucks to suck'.
There are many funded projects not executing for lack of captains today. The captains I manage to hire leave other companies wanting. How is that not a shortage?
I agree that this shortage could have been avoided.
Perhaps those projects are just not viable economically, because they can't pay enough to attract the captains. Or, the owners are too rigid to pay (for example) $500k salary to a captain.
That is still a shortage. There is a finite number of licensed captains with Master of Towing endorsement who are legally allowed to work on U.S. flag vessels. You cannot make a new licensed captain with just money. It takes time.
I completely agree that shortages can be fixed with good planning, which industry and the U.S. government did not do.
I also completely agree that when using unskilled labor, one can just apply more money to attract labor. Skilled labor requires more than money to acquire.
If you don’t mind sharing. How did you find yourself in a second career as the owner/operator of a tugboat company?
There are no particular education requirements for writing software. Some of the best developers have no formal education in the field.
Pay is short for “pay to quality of life at work ratio”.
If alternatives with better pay to QoL ratios become available, the then either a business can increase the pay to QoL ratio, or it may no longer be viable.
I think it would be helpful to this discussion if you were to add "for the amount that I am paying them" to the end of that sentence. Then, you would be addressing the point.
$100K for a desk job is comparable to $300K on a boat
If the captain works 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off it's probably more like $150K for a desk job
Pay people at all levels a minimum of $5000 for each week away at sea, then they might do 4 months of work (which includes free board but is essentially a 24hr job) and 8 months of other things they enjoy while still living a near middle-class life.
Still having a hard time finding people? Give them more comfortable beds. Get an on-board chef. Ensure they have starlink access when they're not on active duty. Give them appropriate bonuses, dental, medical, RRSP matching
I'd be very surprised if you don't find a number of people eager to do this if their compensation is good enough.
Sure, if 80% of your workforce is only on deck 3-4 months out of the year then of course you have to hire more people too, but you'll find those people. You'll be flooded with people who want to do this. Maybe my calculus is off? Maybe you need to pay $6000/week? $10000/week? I guarantee you there is a salary incentive where people won't refuse. People will leave software engineering jobs to go work on a boat 3 months out of a year (I would at around $7000/week). Doctors will quit, etc.
When people say better pay won't solve the "shortage", I wonder how they so deeply misunderstood free market economics.
"most young candidates" don't want to be slaving away at a factory for most of their life either. They want to be able to buy a house. Maybe even 4 months of rent relief will massively change their lives. Maybe they want to buy a house one day or be able to responsibly have a kid.
There's not a labor shortage, there are just industries that don't pay enough
This is not exactly true. It's not at all true when talking about training, because paying people is what motivates them to take the risk of paying for their own training (and if you're training people yourself, you don't require trained people.) Experience is created by paying people enough not to leave the profession.
> Licensed tugboat captains are retiring/dying faster than new licenses are being granted.
Why weren't people trying to become tugboat captains for the past X years? Is it because the job paid too much?
-----
edit: I think you could say this is a collective action problem; nobody is willing to raise pay because it will make them uncompetitive against those who don't, but if they all raised pay they would all make more money and be more secure in the future. It's the kind of thing where an active government would step in and manage hiring and/or dictate pay. Instead, since our politicians are only concerned with what individuals are willing to pay them to do, they get lobbied to weaken labor regulations and immigration laws.
There are lots of unemployed black people desperate for work if one wants to fill up tugboats and construction sites. Just tell them where to show up.
Right now, there is a shortage. If there is a shortage of hammers, one cannot just claim that the shortage does not exist because we can eventually make more hammers.
> Why weren't people trying to become tugboat captains for the past X years? Is it because the job paid too much?
The recent rollout of USCG Subchapter M has created significant demand while not increasing the available supply. I agree that industry and government should have realized this would happen.
Think of it this way, gold has a high price, so I only use it in valuable ways, I don’t gold plate my house. If gold was significantly cheaper maybe I would, is there a shortage? Clearly there is a shortage at the price I would pay to gold plate my house. But I am fine using it for jewelry, no shortage at that price.
Your hammer example is the same, there are insufficient hammers at a certain price. Raising price will decrease demand and eliminate the shortage. This increase makes its way through the supply chain increasing prices along the way until demand goes down.
Of course this semantic argument is pointless because what people really want is access to the products they are accustomed to at a price they are accustomed to.
edit to add: This whole thread now feels like defense of the Efficient Market Hypothesis. We have an entire industry facing a stricter regulatory framework that increased demand for captains while fewer humans are being born in the U.S. This is a shortage.
I get that one can just increase wages and immediately get more cashiers or burger flippers. Other problems have more complicated dependencies.
edit more to add: I realize now I did not fully appreciating your argument, which is that there is never a shortage of anything?
Right now, captains with Master of Towing endorsement are getting $800-$1,200 per day, depending on the region and type of work.
Deckhands on a track to become captains are getting $300-$500 per day. I would pay more for the right candidates.
I bet you could bring captains out of retirement at the eight price. You're just not there (yet).
Not every job is like a desk job where we can just add more money and get more COBOL programmers back out of retirement.
Plus offering unlimited, all expenses paid, legal support on top would get hundreds of tugboat captains from other countries to emigrate.
And the same could also apply for other licensed captains to switch to tugboats, the procedures aren't so complicated as to make a determined effort impossible.
Voila, shortage resolved in under 3 years.
I never argued that the shortage cannot be fixed. I argued against the claim that there is no shortage. Some shortages require more than just paying more money.
That's where things start to go wrong - because it may be that some industry is in decline because it's being eclipsed by something else entirely, and artificially propping up that industry causes a market distortion that results in lower efficiency. The free market can still sort it out - ultimately as supply goes down, either prices will rise, or we'll find that there is insufficient demand because buyers far away in the supply chain are finding another, more efficient way.
I agree though that "labour shortage" is partly a misnomer. It's more accurately described as a market labour upwards price adjustment in progress!
Airlines are paying more and more for captains, but it's not solving the shortage. They're just poaching them from each other, the total vacancies stays the same.
So I think with airlines, it is still very much a case of a pay shortage.
Regional pilots, where you do your time if you didn’t join the military, get paid absolute peanuts. You’re looking at a career that pays well under average for most of your younger years, for very skilled labor, then tops out at about the pay of a mid-level software engineer. And you have a terrible schedule and are on call pretty much all the time, so good luck with a family. Oh and if you screw up, you get a mark on your record you have to justify at every interview for the rest of your career—if you’re lucky and nobody died. Not to mention all the layoffs over the years, where you have to keep current when nobody is hiring.
Changing jobs as a pilot sets you back to square one with seniority and pay. There's no way to change companies and get raises - like one can do as a software developer.
Airlines have also laid off pilots during several industry downturns since 2001. Every time that happens, some switch careers and never return to flying.
Know a few former Naval Aviators who hit their 8-10 year commit and decided to get a Masters in something not aviation related -- work-life balance was a definite draw.
Why make that kind of investment and take that risk and spend your 20s with a shit quality of life if you have better options?
I was trained as a unlimited Third Mate (Any Oceans, Any Gross tons), but decided not to sit for license and became an engineer instead. Every so often I wonder if I made the right choice, esp. since some of my classmates now own or are running shipping companies.
I worked at Microsoft a few decades ago, and just sort of assumed that virtually everyone was there so that they could do their own start up. I was sorely wrong, and only one other than myself did so.
It may be industry dependent in a similar fashion to how many truckers are (used to be?) often owner-operators. You realize that you can only make so much money working for someone else and after a while the lifestyle gets tiring. Hard to settle down when you're away for 6 months out of the year. Or at some point you realize that your odds of being seriously injured at sea are going to catch up to you and you see an opportunity to buy a couple of harbor tugs or the like while managing them shoreside, and go for it.
I honestly never thought about it until you brought that up, but it could be personality types. When my High School History teacher heard that I was going to nautical school, she thought it would be a good fit for me since I was a loner and sailors were basically "cowboys who went to sea instead" in her words. And she understood me very well.
I really don't know the reason but it certainly merits thinking about. Especially since I've had some kind of side-hustle/consulting/business venture during every job I've ever had.
> Although the Coast Guard released Subchapter M on July 20, 2016, vessels had two years to meet the majority of the requirements — the deadline falling on July 20, 2018. The Coast Guard is trying to work with the tug and towing companies to make for a smooth transition into the new regulations with minimal downtime. The entirety of the law will be phased in over a six-year period.
> The next deadline for obtaining a certificate of inspection (COI) is in 2019. By July 22nd, 25 percent of towing and tugboat companies’ vessels must have a COI onboard. The percentage increases by 25 percent each year after until all vessels in the fleet have their COI onboard.
I have done quite a lot to entice potential captains to join us over the last 3 years. Very few potential candidates are excited about the lifestyle, especially during the time when ZIRP was funding companies doing nothing.
But you did need them, as evidenced by the fact that now you're having trouble finding captains. You needed them then so they could be trained to be captains now. Yeah, training and growing people is an investment. Yeah, it doesn't always pay off. But you don't get to complain when you didn't invest that you didn't reap the rewards of your nonexistent investment.
> I have done quite a lot to entice potential captains to join us over the last 3 years. Very few potential candidates are excited about the lifestyle, especially during the time when ZIRP was funding companies doing nothing.
And as some others have asked you, what are you offering a starting deckhand? Give us at least a range for pay.
I have been running the company for three years. Yes, my predecessor could have invested more earlier. All of the tugboat companies in our cohort could have invested more earlier. They could have raised prices so that they could attract more people. I agree that the industry and the government made bad choices in the past that lead to a shortage now.
The path from deckhand to licensed captain requires seatime. We have a fleet of four tugs. Even if we had been able to invest in the deckhands, where would we have put them? Each tug has a finite number of men it can carry, limited by physical space, supplies, and regulation.
I answered about pay rate elsewhere in the thread. I will try to add more details about the various labor categories.
No, that will never work. But I bet you will be successful in some field where patience is a virtue.
A lack of prescience is not unique to tugboats.
Maybe, but...
> They require more training and experience.
Well, sure, those have more lag (all market signals in the real, non-ideal, world have some), and to cut through noise and make sure the signal gets to the labor force, you may need to pay for the training and the work that provides the experience, as well as the target job itself.
> Licensed tugboat captains are retiring/dying faster than new licenses are being granted
Dying you can't avoid, but sufficient pay can affect the choice to retire. So, to the extent voluntary retirement is an issue, that suggests pay is also an issue.
If not inflation-adjusted, possibly in compared-to-best-alternative terms.
A friend of mine moved from construction to working on a tugboat ~1.5 years ago and I spent a bunch of time talking about it this winter. Some parts of the business sound interesting but I'm not sure it is a good fit due to family health and relationships.
Sometimes they’re tough.
One example : Software engineers often get the "Work From Home" perk. Not sure if the industry offers software to remotely operate a tugboat, similar to a drone operator ? If it didn't exist, what if you developed such software ?
As for remote control, no, this will be one of the last industries to allow remote control. In port and at many points during the voyage, captain and crew make quick decisions that require situational awareness. The deckhands have to wrangle lines and physically interact with the tow.
Also paying people who are good at training extra money would be good. They are creating competition for themselves later on.
There's a shortage of people willing to put up with being treated like shit and not even being paid hazard pay for dealing with management.
And then there's the habit of trying to keep the absolute bare minimum of employees in order to boost quarterly profits, which means there's no float of extra people you can poach if you get a giant project landing in your lap. It's Prisoner's Dilemma and everyone has been defecting since the 1970's.
I am replying to the assertions that there is no such thing as a labor shortage. It takes years of seatime to become a licensed captain. It takes more than money to make one. Our tugboats have berths for 4-6 crew. There are physical and regulatory limits on how many deckhands can be in the pipeline to becoming captains.
The regulations on how many "trainees" can exist at any one time is an interesting point of contention. Honestly, sorry I commented if that's the hold back for you guys.
I still struggle to imagine there is any job a six digit (or local comparative equivalent) salary with a fully paid training won't spur an abundance of candidates for. If your career is one, I'm sorry I so confidently doubted you
The process is that one generally comes on as an uncredentialed deckhand or mechanic and accrues necessary seatime, then takes courses and passes tests. One must pass an annual physical and be subject to random drug tests. The deckhand must be able to get a TWIC card and a passport if doing anything international. Candidates with previous problems with DUIs, child support, etc. have trouble with this. Then you have to be willing to live in cramped quarters with 3-5 other men 24 hours a day. All of these requirements cut down the pool of likely candidates.
One has to work at this job for a few years to be able to have accrued the seatime and learn on the job and take some courses and then take a test.
So even if I could pay a deckhand $500k per year, that doesn't fix the problem we have today. That deckhand will not be a captain for years.
And most deckhands don't have the aptitude to become captains.
You don't have to take my word for it. You could talk to anybody in the industry.
See, e.g.,: https://www.google.com/search?q=tugboat+labor+shortage
Of course, some people take more precautions than others, and that helps, but it's no guarantee of safety.
There are proper postures to do a lot of activities and they are frequently not observed. Maintaining proper posture is a skill that must be trained until you don't have to think about it. Even something "mindlessly simple" like lifting a heavy object off the ground and carrying it somewhere requires proper posture and technique to reduce chance of injuries. Reduce, not eliminate. You can do everything right and still get injured.
When lifting things off the ground, most people will flex and extend the torso instead of using their much stronger leg muscles. The better form is to squat down by flexing the thighs, pick up the object then lift it up by extending the thighs, all while maintaining the spine aligned.
Physical education and conditioning is important in these jobs. In our every day lives.
So there are ways to do physical labor that do not harm you, but a lot of these come down to management and are not up to the individual employee. You could definitely hurt yourself very badly if you do it wrong (which you won't generally do naturally -- our bodies give us lots of warnings -- but pressure from above can make you ignore those warnings and drastically shorten your working life).
Fortunately, the company where I did labor really tried to be a healthy place to work, and that made such a huge difference. A lot of my coworkers had been there for 30 years or more, and they were still zipping around like they were 20.
These are some things that really help:
- The work needs to not be too repetitive (you need to switch tasks several times a day, and each task needs to use different parts of your body).
- You need breaks. And not just at set times of day, but also just whenever you need it. If you do something to yourself that feels funny or not quite right (a warning sign that you are on the verge of a sprain or some other injury), you need to be able to stop working immediately until the feeling passes.
- You need to do work that is within your capability. It's OK to work extremely hard, to go home exhausted, and to feel muscle soreness the next day. But if you do something you're not strong enough or quick enough to handle with total control, you are likely to make mistakes that lead to injuries (tripping, dropping something, using poor form, etc.). Such injuries can be severe and lifelong, so you should absolutely never work at the edge of your ability.
- You need to be well-slept and well-hydrated (cold water and electrolytes should be available at all times, with absolutely no delay), and you must have appropriate clothing and a way to temporarily escape from the heat if you suddenly feel faint. You can work extremely hard under surprisingly harsh conditions (I did hard labor in humid, 100-110 F greenhouses day after day and felt great), so long as your body's basic needs are met.
This is one of several root causes behind our national opioid addiction epidemic. While pharmaceutical companies and doctors bear much of the blame, there are millions of people who suffer chronic pain from work injuries that can't be fully repaired.
What about during WWII in the United States? A large number of people had to leave their jobs because they were drafted for the war.
Some have messed up back & knees... others don't. The big difference between the groups is their level of activity outside of the job and their fitness level; the guys who work out, and have worked out for decades, and are active outside their job are all in good health... no back problems, no knee problems, no shoulder problems, etc. Some of these guys are in their 60's now and retired.
I'm not judging... just saying it is possible to work a heavy labor job and not screw up your body.
It is often hard, grueling work. I was a project manager so I didn’t ‘perform’ any of the work, but I was still up scaffolding and down in muddy pits. The laborers are out in the worst weather day and night and make decent money- but totally wreck their bodies.
So it is a combination of people being steered away from labor jobs into college, not knowing an entry point without family ties, and grueling hard work. I’m surprised anything gets built.
People in wealthy countries would rather make $20/hr working from home or an air conditioned office than $45/hr laying asphalt.
There's already a huge infrastructure cost issue in the US. Can they afford more? How much more?
Then there's a lot of construction happening that does not need to happen.
Steins Law: if something cannot go on, it will stop.
Looks like we're opting for the unplanned sudden stop instead of the planned gradual stop.
Apparently not then. Expectations of quality of life will have to be adjusted downwards (has already been happening).
Of course, society could stop giving healthcare to people 90+, or 80+, and reallocate some resources from there. It all depends on who has the political power in society, but generally, with a stagnant/decreasing younger age population, the fault lines will increasingly show along various age groups.
Pulled muscles.
Sprains.
Tendon and ligament tears.
Vertebra damage from lifting too fast or incorrectly.
Falls. These are usually life altering.
Not using PPE because it takes too long or impedes your vision or it causes you to sweat more or you just don't want the rest of the crew to call you a pussy.
Hearing damage (because no PPE).
Cuts and bruises because you didn't wear gloves.
Sunburn every day which means skin cancer is guaranteed eventually.
Long term exposure to stuff like concrete dust, fiberglas insulation, sawdust from treated wood, volatile organics etc which can wreck your lungs.
Poor nutrition because of too-short lunch breaks and unavailability of non-processed food.
Getting ripped apart by heavy powered equipment because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and somebody did something stupid. Again, life altering.
Frequent alcohol use to ease the aches and pains built up during the day.
But mostly just hard damn physical activity in brutal conditions 8-12 hours a day. Do this for 20 years and it ages you fast and wears out your body.
This is not exercise at the indoor gym with safe equipment under the supervision of a coach. This is "get your ass up that ladder with 100 lbs of shingles on your shoulder without a stinking safety rope and fast, or you're fired."
What about OSHA? OSHA on construction sites is not really a thing I've seen, and if anybody mentioned an OSHA violation they would probably be fired. And since much of the labor force is undocumented, they ain't gonna report a violation anyway, lest they get discovered and deported.
They are shocked that younger people don't want to join the trades and experience shit pay and daily hazing until they become a real tradesman.
There are good employers out there but they are far and few between. Union jobs are also decentish but also not common outside a few places.
Probably the only ones with Herman Miller and other expensive chairs are the receptionists. ;)
I asked a couple nurses I know and they have never heard of this "staff-to-weight" ratio. At least here in America most hospitals operate on staff-to-patient ratio. I suppose this could be different in other countries.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/23/greg-abbott-...
Pulled muscles.
Sprains.
Tendon and ligament tears.
Vertebra damage from lifting too fast or incorrectly.
Falls. These are usually life altering.
Not using PPE because it takes too long or impedes your vision or it causes you to sweat more or you just don't want the rest of the crew to call you a pussy.
Hearing damage (because no PPE).
Cuts and bruises because you didn't wear gloves.
Sunburn every day which means skin cancer is guaranteed eventually.
Long term exposure to stuff like concrete dust, fiberglas insulation, sawdust from treated wood, volatile organics etc which can wreck your lungs.
Poor nutrition because of too-short lunch breaks and unavailability of non-processed food.
Getting ripped apart by heavy powered equipment because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and somebody did something stupid. Again, life altering.
Frequent alcohol use to ease the aches and pains built up during the day.
But mostly just hard damn physical activity in brutal conditions 8-12 hours a day. Do this for 20 years and it ages you fast and wears out your body.
This is not exercise at the indoor gym with safe equipment under the supervision of a coach. This is "get your ass up that ladder with 100 lbs of shingles on your shoulder without a stinking safety rope and fast, or you're fired."
What about OSHA? OSHA on construction sites is not really a thing I've seen, and if anybody mentioned an OSHA violation they would probably be fired. And since much of the labor force is undocumented, they ain't gonna report a violation anyway, lest they get discovered and deported.
(My experience is probably too limited. I'm mostly talking about residential construction. I suspect large commercial projects get more OSHA oversight. But it's still very hard, damaging work.)
He also got buried alive once.
Meanwhile it's 4:41am, and you're going to be working for the next 8 hours on your feet lifting 80 lb things at weird angles in high humidity. Half of your staff may be Hispanic day laborers and not speak English, and the other half may range from the semi-literate to get-in-get-out experienced tradies who DGAF about your problems cuz they're only on site for 1 day. When they fail to nail a board in properly it falls on you, not a serious injury or anything but another scratch and bruise. And then you get to do the same thing tomorrow.
I did hard physical labor for eight years and felt great (it's honestly the best I've ever felt physically and I miss it), but I did not do repetitive work or work under extreme pressure. We were always strongly encouraged to take tons of water breaks, not rush, switch tasks several times a day, and stop working immediately if something started hurting or didn't feel right.
If people are regularly wearing themselves out on physical labor, it's the fault of management.
To be clear I am an “open borders” guy but both political parties in the US make a lot of noise but never change anything.
If they really wanted to, they could easily make it a jailable felony to not eVerify employment status of immigrants.
Significant changes in immigration system were made through law in the 1960s, 1980s, and 1990s; the inability to reach a sufficient consensus to pass legislation (both divided government and the weaponization of the filibuster to functionally act as a supermajority requirement for almost any legislation in the Senate have played a role in preventing legislation) has resulted in most changes since then being by executive action, with drastically different approaches between the parties. “Both parties make noise but never change anything” is, well, quite false.
Despite a lot of construction, I have seen very few “hiring” signifiers anywhere. A few management and PM roles get posted, usually wanting people with long established experience, but not many labor jobs.
There’s a big construction project that’s been going on right next to me for a while. When I go past it, there’s a lot of yellow tape, and signs warning that it’s a felony to steal from the site, but no “we’re hiring” signs.
Most of the jobs I see are bottom tier retail or restaurants positions, call center positions, some logistics jobs, various sales, medical jobs, and management. I do see some electrician work, but usually not in construction.
So uh, where are these jobs?
You also won't find hiring signs at large construction sites because it's a significant nuisance to have a stream of random people (usually unqualified) walking into a managed construction area looking for work. I know this from experience.
Not everyone is hiring all the time either.
Large or more technical construction projects (industrial, public infrastructure, roadways, government projects, warehouses, commercial, bespoke luxury homes, dense multi unit housing, office buildings, skyscrapers, sports arenas, etc) are a completely different ballgame - consider it the difference between college (or even high school) football and the NFL. Safety and liability are taken much more seriously because the stakes are higher, the scale larger. It is correct that you generally cannot even enter such a construction site without an offsite (although usually adjacent) training operated by the general contractor, (who manages site liability) in like an office trailer.
You can still walk into that office trailer (after knocking or ringing a doorbell, usually) and ask the general contractor if they know anyone hiring for role X or Y, etc. This is somewhat okay because during construction phase of a project, GCs usually operate on an interrupt-based process of various and numerous onsite folks walking into their trailer needing this or that. But odds are pretty good they'll quickly tell you to get lost if you're not showing them some sort of valued trade qualifications or know them personally in some way. If you have those qualifications, usually your phone is already ringing off the hook (see above article) and you don't have to walk into random construction sites, hence why so many of the people that do have no qualifications.
Another way to get your foot in the door is to go to a temporary staffing agency like PeopleReady and tell them you want such a construction site job. It will be grueling 'unskilled' general labor. Then you can get the training to get on the site, and possibly make a connection for future work. (Does not happen successfully often, except for the most exceptional and lucky temp workers)
Not always and they are getting better, but there is still a problem there.
It's a moldy part of the piece of bread that prospective workers have to eat around, whether they go union or non-union, until we can get rid of it completely. But we're making progress fast in a ground-up sort of way.
Also - a good union is often a successful foil to a bad business, but rarely the other way around. I think the best foil to a bad union would be strong regulation and enforcement of the platonic idea of the union, like in Germany. Unfortunately that particular solution would probably be DOA in USA.
... and people wonder why there is a "labor shortage" for these jobs.
There is no labor shortage, there is a glut of roadblocks.
Also bailbonds, divorce lawyers who specialize in men's cases, and requests emailed in from the local prison.
Ages ago my dad worked concrete construction back in IL. I was young and didn't pay much attention, but I recall him referring to "the hall" as where he'd go to find work. Google search turned up this:
https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em...
I wasn't seriously injured, but ninety nine out of 100 times someone in that position would be.
Heavy vehicles get to office work situation, with added risk of having to get up and down and possibly jump from places...
Schedule - shifts start at 6AM or earlier. I knew a guy who worked concrete, he'd have to show up at 4AM to load the mixer. I knew another guy who majored in construction management, he said they had a 6AM class every day. The theory was if you couldn't make it to class, you wouldn't make it to work either.
Consistency - I knew an electrician who was constantly in and out of work. He was either working 70+ hours a week or out of work for 2-3 months. The construction industry is very boom or bust.
Drug Testing - the same friend who majored in construction management told me that something like 60% of their applicants failed a drug screen (almost always marijuana). The crazy thing is that he claimed they didn't actually care - their insurance company insisted on it. THC stays in your urine for quite a while so a positive test doesn't necessarily mean you're high right now, but people just wouldn't stay clean long enough to clear it.
Safety - Others have mentioned it but between the day-to-day wear and tear and the risk of accident, it's tough on your body. Not many people over age 50 still work in construction trades, unless they're at Master level or have moved to management.
1. https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/15-24...
This cuts for the nice highly paid salaried construction engineers too, as you allude to with the classes at 6am anecdote. IME, project management expects the engineers to be on-site at least a half hour or more before the field shift begins, and at least an hour past the field shift to ensure that the 'actual' work, the field stuff, is organized, ready, and gets carried out productively. Regardless if the field is working 8s, 10s, 12s, or more.
No first thing in the morning panics or scrambles when a foreman realizes he doesn't have a work plan in hand and his crew of a dozen who started at 6am sits around waiting for the engineer to traipse in around 9am with an iced coffee just to print a pdf that should've been ready the night before.
These kind of hours pretty rapidly cut into that equivalent hourly rate your salary equals!
I once built a house with two friends over a summer, gruelling work (70-80 hours per week) but lots of fun & great learning experience. A month in I had a major flare up of RSI in both wrists and had to take two weeks off to get it back under control (with the help of ibuprofen to reduce inflammation & on advice of my doctor), and then I wore wrist braces on the construction site after that.
If it had been an actual job then I imagine there would've been more pressure to not take that time off to recuperate, leading to longer term damage.
> Plenty of money to build, not enough to recruit and train
edit:
> President Biden’s recent infrastructure bill magnifies the issue – money has been allocated for updating America’s infrastructure, but no money has been allocated for enticing new workers into the construction industry, or training new workers. This, according to Davidson, has worsened the labor shortage that already existed prior to the bill’s passage.
America only thinks in terms of subsidizing the wealthy. The industry should be paying to train people to get into the industry, and government should be assisting and coordinating private businesses, not providing for them.
I used to work medical/safety on major construction sites, and I'm not sure it's purely pay, because lots of guys love the overtime (caused in part by fewer men per man-hour of work). The beginning of the proverbial pipeline is drying/has dried up.
Good for workers, bad for companies.
A google search for "meme about college vs trades" captures the sentiment: "College Kid is $100k in debt for his PhD in Philosophical Basketweaving, is unemployed, and looks down at tradesmen"; "Tradesman got paid for his apprenticeship, owns a house and a brand-new pickup truck, and just disconnected College Kid's utilities for non-payment"
The demurrage clauses in contracts are generally more expensive than paying overtime, even 2x rates, so it happens as the project falls behind, which it almost inevitably does, due to weather, failed drug tests, people walking/getting kicked off the job, etc.
Things like large concrete pours or topping off a wind turbine need to be done in one go, which can quickly result in 16, 18, or 20-hour days and/or 7-day work weeks.
So, the job might advertise $20-40/hr, but many of these guys are making well over $100k annually.
This is not mutually exclusive. Both per hour earnings and annual income are relevant measures. $100k annually for working 2,000 hours is a very different quality of life than $100k annually for working 3,000 hours. The other factors that will come into play are working conditions (for example, outdoor temperatures, working in active roadways, etc), working nights, early mornings, weekends, and frequency and distance of travel.
But it will all work itself out, even though there may be some pains while supply and demand curves move to find the correct prices.
My per diet was $250, but hotel in the middle of oil field nowhere was $140/night, I couldn’t get breakfast for less than $15, lunch about the same, and any dinner that wasn’t a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store $25. Now you’re at $225/250 of your per diem, you’re covered in concrete, and you get $25 “bonus” for the privilege of living away from home out of back eating whatever you can find in the middle of nowhere.
A lot of the smaller contractors would bring in a 5th wheel, break out the bbq after work, and pocket the hotel money to make work better.
And maybe they make $100k but they work heavy overtime, away from home, and 3000 hours a year to make it happen. And they still have to spend 12 hours actually doing the physical work to make the job happen.
It’s not a glamorous life.
We rented a 3BR for practically nothing and ate out just about every night (food was cheaper there than at home). I basically lived off of the per diem and put the actual salary away for the off-season.
Most of the people I worked with, myself included, were young and (more importantly) single and traveling all over the country was a plus. One of the electrical foreman used to work in Antarctica, and I forget what insane amount of money he made there, but I'd definitely have jumped on that even for half the pay.
Re: Hourly vs. Annual - I'm speaking more to the fact that it's non-linear, because of the per diem and lots of overtime.
I'm not sure I'd call it glamorous, but I'd definitely do it again if I didn't have a family to consider.
(My wife used to do commercial fishing, which is perhaps even more un-glamorous, but there's something satisfying about coming home after a few weeks with more money than you know what to do with - at least in your early/mid 20's.)
They've all referenced "useless" degrees, which I've interpreted broadly as people who get degrees for the sake of having degrees - especially those who look down on people without degrees.
I think a lot of people like the hands-on aspect over, say, math, and/or the fact that their job is done when they punch out - they don't have the responsibility that a PE or PM does. Go to work, turn wrench, come home, drink beer, repeat.
This plague of people who think they're smarter than everyone else, especially those who came before them, and know about everything is insufferable.
1. Pay and/or working conditions suck so much people aren't interested. Think of nurses, various staff (restaurant, cleaning etc) that are often employed through third-party companies that offer you limited hours on weekly basis.
2. Labor limited through artificial constraints on supply. Doctors are a good example of this here - doctors associations successfully lobby to keep medical school student intake low, which means lower supply and better pay for those who make it.
3. Positions that require just too much experience, knowledge or talent to be obtained simply through right education. Think of top senior software engineers for example.
Bracero Program and before were workable. Not that they are directly applicable to today, but the paperwork to work temporarily in the US should be made many times simpler and easier than the convoluted, kafkaesque, corrupt abomination that it is now that benefits primarily medium and large agribusinesses by exploiting undocumented persons. The meat agriculture industry openly advertises salaries in newspapers in central and south America to encourage undocumented migration. It's a dirty secret that undocumented peoples who work for large industrial concerns are generally safe from ICE raids except for occasional token enforcement to maintain the pretense, while other undocumented people are subject to raids at any time. This isn't by accident but through the power of lobbyists and money.
Namely many of the major spending bills passed by the Biden admin focuses on actually building things in the US.
Biden clearly understands the real economic value of keeping an economy functional.
Doesn't seem to have been a great move.
The second New Deal was a different story.
>In June 2023, the surveyed unemployment rate of young people between 16 and 24 years of age in urban areas of China ranged at 21.3 percent, up from 20.8 percent in the previous month.
>In 2022, S&P Global Ratings found that corporate debt in China reached nearly $29 trillion in the first quarter, the highest in the world and roughly equivalent to the size of the U.S. government’s total debt.
US total debt to GDP: 118.6%.
Chinese total debt to GDP: 279.7%
Yes, very healthy. Very successful.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_financing_veh...
Here China cancels projects midway due to government debt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-07-11/china-s-h...
US is getting infrastructure and talent. STEM graduations are at an all time high. US is also building new chips and EVs. Construction job openings are at all time high.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/828915/number-of-stem-de....
>Over 33 million young people have entered the job market and more than six million of them are currently unemployed, NBS spokesman Fu Linghui told reporters in a briefing Thursday. The population of those aged 16 and 24 is about 96 million, but many are not looking for jobs because they’re still in school, he said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-15/china-you...
Note the figures:
6/33, youths entering job market = 18%+ (round up to 7/33 since "more than 6m" for 21% figure), aka the figure MSM narrative and PRC collapsist are fixating on
But it's really:
6-7/96m, total youths 66m either in education or not looking = 6-7%, aka in line with US Bureau of Labour Statistics BLS (~8%)
Now compare from from BLS 2022 report:
> The unemployment rate for youth was 8.5 percent in July 2022
AND
>The labor force participation rate for all youth was 60.4 percent in July 2022, little different from a year earlier.
TO REPEAT FOR EMPHASIS:
>all youth was 60.4 percent
AKA 40% aggregate youth unemployment in US
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/youth.pdf
Were people losing their shit over 40% US youth unemployment rate? No they quote the 8.5% from BLS in same report.
Also note PRC NBS statistic is URBAN youths, 16-24 population total is ~150m, there's about 60m rural youth not accounted for. Also note urban un/underemployment so far skews less skilled - basically service industry got fucked during covid so many low skilled youths got the shaft. TBF, rural youth unemployment probably bad, so would not be far fetched if PRC aggregate youth unemployment is also 40%+, but bluntly rural youth not really skilled cohorts driving up PRC economy. But also expect UBRAN youth unemployment statistics to increase, IMO 30-40%+ because one of the largest cohort of students are about to graduate (12m) into mediocre economy, which TBH even PRC with high 8% (vs projected 5%) growth is going to struggle to create that many jobs. For reference India youth unemployment is 45% from May, 16-24 is like 40% of Indian population pyramid, while only 15% for PRC. What's a bigger problem? PRC with 6m+ unemployed youths or India with 250m+? Why is western MSM and PRC collapcists wanking about about India replacing PRC instead of massively squandering what's left of their demographic divident. This isn't directed at you, just general comment on PRC reporting.
Now realize even at 30-40% youth unemployment in PRC, that's still employment for ~6-8m youths, especially skilled. Equal to about 2x US total tertiary graduation, while PRC generates ~5m STEM per year (9x more than US), and jobs in strategic S&T industries in PRC like semiconductors are booming. The TLDR is people in west meming about PRC youth unemployment should be TERRIFIED that PRC urban youth unemploymentis only 20%/6% because that's anywhere between 2-9x more skilled talent than US, especially in competitive high tech sectors.
On cancelling projects half way, yeah there's bad infra projects, just like US wastes stupid amount of resources trying to get things built only to not. Difference is PRC is left with a bunch of underutilized infra or worst case half finished buildings and wasted emissions and US is left with some richer paper pushers. They're both wasteful, but PRC waste has chance of future utility. And that PRC waste is make job for millions of low skill worker (by design) while US waste is directed towards bureacrats (again by capture/design).
The long TLDR from figures above is US can start emphasising STEM and construction, but won't be in the same league as PRC. PRC population base effect with poor TFR and even future shit TFR is STILL so high US can't boost STEM + immigration close to parity, and even less chance now that PRC talent is increasingly inaccessible to US due to geopolitics. Keep in mind next 24 years of PRC demographics already baked in, the kind of talent gap they're spitting out right now can be reasonably maintained for about 2 decades since birth from 2000+ is 9-12m per year. That's ~50-100M STEM, aka the greatest high skill demographic divident in human history. US population is projected to increase by 40m in that time frame. PRC employing 1/2 of future STEM talent in relevant fields is enough to compete. Like all the news of PRC climbing up value chains, leading in science and innovation indexes from last few years? Or moving from 1T to 18T economy. They did that by growing STEM from ~2M to ~17M STEM. US construction IMO even more hopeless, of course opennings are high, but where's the talent to fill and if talents there, the ability to cut tape and actually build. CHIPs fab already behind schedule. I'm sure US will get there eventually, but they have different hurdles, as does PRC. But PRC advantage is demographics (yes demographics, despite Zeihantards claims), as in skilled talent important in national building, and ability to get physical things build, even if it means building to much. PRC's has over capacity "problem", but the problem of excess is different from problem of paucity, which is what US is dealing with in terms of STEM shortage and inability to actually build.
Everyone’s chips are behind schedule. PRC pulled the plug on chip investments because of continued failures and high debt.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-04/battered-...
On semi, you're comparing building things that US should already be able to build, advanced fabs that they have entire tech supply access to VS PRC trying to replicate / close gap to tech they don't have, i.e. it's an innovation not construction problem. Where it's a construction issue, i.e. large nodes, PRC is building like crazy and mostly on schedule. Significant delays are in 28nm and smaller fabs due to escalating export controls by US who has to literally roadblock PRC from being on schedule. US systematically self-sabatoges so she has to also sabatoge PRC to ensure gap doesn't close.
On PRC shifting from big fund, that's due to US sanctions/export controls forcing PRC semi to actually focus on indigenous tech. Big fund was wasteful carrot trying to get PRC semi to indigenize, but no one wanted to when access to mature western tech was available. Now it's not, so incentive structure different, as stated in article itself. See major companies in PRC semi have explosive growth in last couple years... without big fund tier subsidy because sanctions have made them viable. US sticks works better than PRC carrots. No one's fucking around trying buying US/western equipment anymore and doubling down on actually developing and integrating indigenous semi supply chain since unlike bigfund era when situation wasn't existential and bigfund basically opportunity to graft.
PRC is behind only in the sense that US has to actively keep PRC down (which is US right), US CHIPS has no reason to be behind other than lack of human capita and inability to build. BTW there's a reason TSMC/Samsung expanded to PRC before US, and US had to sanction/export control their way to prevent PRC from leading gaining advanced nodes, not just indigenous efforts like Fujian Jinhua, but other established semi players as well. The Taiwanese and Koreans know PRC (just like TW/SKR) has no issue building or staffing and economically operating advanced fabs, meanwhile they were reluctant to expand to US even with CHIPS subsidy.
But general point remains, PRC youth unemployment different kind of problem - it's reflection of state overcapacity, problem of excess is different from problem of paucity, which is what US is dealing with in terms of skilled talent shortage. PRC general employment ~5%, which means most youth either give up or end up in workforce eventually. People work if they have to work. The important consideration is if enough of them work in relevant sectors to push PRC up value chain, last few years show that is happening. Recent reports PRC moving up value chains, science and innovation indexes coincides with trend of increasing youth unemployment since it's lag effect / byproduct of PRC was spamming as many bodies into tertiary as possible. Surplus has been trying to find places to go for years, from bureaucracy to other stable state jobs, and maybe eventually they'll eat bitter like Xi wants and start filling well paying blue collar jobs. Society is eventually going to accept/reckon with with talent over production. IMO Saturating society with more talent than needed (or more infra than needed) is better problem than shortage.
Which ones? The display, SoC, and RAM are not manufactured in China. IIRC the battery and one of the cameras are made there and the main camera is not.
Interesting editorializing.
I guess it's technically "bipartisan" in the sense that they got some republicans to vote for it, but if you look at the actual votes[1] it's clearly being carried by democrats. Given that, I don't think the claim of "the Democrats are trying to fundamentally reshape American industrial policy" is misleading or "interesting editorializing" (whatever that means).
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684...
In the House, it was only 8 Republicans out of 228 votes. https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2021370
This is not a high bar. 30 bucks an hour is just above a basic living wage.
These dudes are not only ruining their bodies in unsafe conditions they're doing it for 15 bucks an hour.
And they're destroying themselves for peanuts because they're competing against immigrants who will allow themselves to be treated like animals because they come from a country that treats it's citizens like animals.
Americans are being pitted against immigrants in a massive race to the bottom to see who is ok with being treated like shit the most.
We should have a higher standard here.