Businesses being sold, service pros booked to the end of time
 

Our plater, anodizer and two other small to medium sized companies we use were purchased recently. Big cash outs for guys who started 20-40 years ago. Very happy for them.

I've been trying to find an electrician to install a 208 to 460 transformer and wiring for a new air compressor. Forget it. Everyone's booked for 2 months.

Platers, anodizers around here are getting out as New jersey is killing them with EPA costs and regs. Same with with businesses relating to fiberglass and painters (car, boat, airplane).

Real estate market is crazy so I see the electrician issue.

Mostly gone from California

no EPA costs and regs. in Cambridge??

Nobody can find employees willing to work because they are all sitting at home taking in unemployment and free Covid relief money. My teenager went shopping for his first job this week and was hired on the spot at a restaurant for $10/hour because they can’t find anybody willing to work.

My daughter graduated college last June, couldn't find a job (journalism & art degrees . . . ), came home, then immediately got hired as a full-time teacher for a "pod" of kids who needed someone fluent in French, at $25/hr w/ benefits. She's just finishing that job now, and headed off to California for her summer job running kitchen/dining services for a family camp. When that's done, she's going to France to work for a year as an English teacher.

She's kind of sad, because looking at all the job openings around town, she thinks she could get a pretty high-level cooking job - sous chef in a nice restaurant, etc - and really advance her cooking chops, in a position that she couldn't normally qualify for - if she were available.

This is a good time for people who want to work. Those who don't, well, special unemployment benefits end in a few months so . . .

That seems to be part of the problem Matt, business owners aren't paying enough. I made $8.25 cooking at a restaurant in 1984. That's 37 years ago. Now if your son is earning tips too, that's ok.

Before you get apoplectic, the unemployment relief might have been a good idea MONTHS ago but no longer, but it's definitely keeping kids/young adults home making money sitting on the couch looking at tiktok videos.

I also think no one can find anyone to work because parents suck and no one has a work ethic anymore, present company excepted. I talk with shop customers all the time, no one wants to work.

highest & strongest in the country I think. MA does not fool around with corporate regulation. They just bill Lockheed Martin and Roll Royce aerospace and me more.

If you are loosing employees to unemployment, an argument that I don't buy as the complete reason, you're not paying enough.

These guys have no trouble finding staff.


Grunt
https://store-external-buc-ees.icims.com/jobs/5812/warehouse-stocker/job

Clean Bathrooms
https://store-external-buc-ees.icims.com/jobs/5804/cleaning-%26-maintenance-attendant/job

Flip Burgers
https://store-external-buc-ees.icims.com/jobs/5786/foodservice/job

Those are $28-30k per year jobs.

Why would people take those jobs when the government is paying them $28-30k to NOT take those jobs?

It amazes me that people think that the government paying people 30k a year to sit at home isn’t keeping people out of the workplace.

I personally know many people that aren’t going to lift a finger until it ends. Many. From 23 year olds on up (including many of my tenants).

And, to some extent they are not irrational in doing that.

Well to be fair I told my son to get an effing job or he can leave. He’s 17 so I’m not sure if I can actually do that but so be it.:D To McLovin’s point though, it’s not fair that small business has to compete with the USG paying people $30k+ per year to sit on their asses. Every business regionally has a help wanted sign and the rates are sky high, there’s no excuse to not be employed right now.

The number of continuing UE claims peaked at nearly 24 million, now is below 4 million. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CCSA

When pandemic UE benefits end - by Sep 6 everywhere, as early as June in some states - this labor shortage will solve itself. Maybe not like flipping a light switch but decent jobs without specialized skill requirements should not be going begging through year end.

sign pic:

The employment scene is so bad...

That long haired freaky people can now apply.

Journalism, art and cuisine? Your kid is the type of person whose company and conversation I truly enjoy over a long lazy dinner. I bet she's interesting as heck.

Demand for housing in So Cal is off the charts, but constructing them is seriously constrained by lack of labor - all up and down the supply chain.

And so far, starting pay doesn't seem to be a factor: no one comes in for a job, which leaves me to think it's just too easy not to work.

And ps This started way before covid, The additional UE just exacerbated the problem.

Socialism is great early on. When a loaf of bread is $100, people will ask how we there....

They’d be fools to do so. The government should probably pay less, but the employers more.

Just wire that transformer yourself! The analytical calculations on the chemistry is harder than running wire....

Another old perv trying to pu on the young stuff..

Spending way too much time looking in the mirror.