I saw a vid a few months ago abt low pay 4 carpenters... ao i decided to hire one. Oops! Not as low wage as i was led to believe!
Why America has so few carpenters
31–40 of 251 posts
Re: Why America has so few carpenters
#32I'm a little surprised it cites carpenters make more than real estate agents. I'd assume a full time agent (not your neighbor who just happened to have a license) could make more than 50k a year. If I recall, average home price now sells at 300k. A realtor keeping 2% after fees...buy/sell 10 houses and that's 60k.
Also most realtors work for an agency, which keeps a big piece of their cut.
Re: Why America has so few carpenters
#33The last 50 years of American prosperity was built primarily on the exploitation of labor as unions declined and Capital starting consuming an outsized amount of Labor’s productivity (with a fair amount of help from globalization efforts). Until the scales tip (and there are signs we’re headed there) and labor has more power with stronger unions, people should not expect workers to take garbage jobs (even in trades when they’re non union) because of manufactured shortages or crises. There is no labor shortage, only a shortage of workers willing to take undesirable work for unreasonable compensation. Luckily (?), as labor force participation continues to decline (10k Boomers retire each day) and there isn’t an appetite to ramp immigration, labor supply constraints will continue to push up wages (but is not a long term solution for broad scale productivity equity participation versus labor organization).
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/09/labor-day-chart-union-mem...
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_productivity_and_...
https://www.epi.org/publication/how-todays-unions-help-worki...
Re: Why America has so few carpenters
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Managers complaining about "not enough x" mean "I'm not willing to pay the market rate for x". Like, its a free market, up your price... or do you think basic economics don't apply to labor too? I'm surprised this article doesn't examine why companies aren't upping their pay.
they are not upping pay, because it's not profitable. to pay ppl enough $ to entice them to do carpentry is not profitable, hence so few of them. I remember climbing a 4,000 ft mountain in a day in the hot sun..you could not pay me enough $ to ever want to do that again, and even if you could, it would never be profitable. That's why things are airlifted.
Yeah but carpentry has to be done and is getting done. It’s not so expensive you stop the job and wait for a lower price. My guess is you just use other unskilled labor and go for good enough. Maybe a true skilled carpenter isn’t worth the premium or the value isn’t clear to the buyer
Re: Why America has so few carpenters
#35My parents met when they were both working construction. My mom was a surveyor and a laborer at various times; she helped get my dad into the union (Philly) and he was a carpenter. My mom stopped it to raise me and my sibling; my dad did it until it entirely broke his body. (I would not be writing this as a college-educated adult if he hadn't had a union pension that kicked in on disability.) I know precisely one per…
My parents were fishermen and have close to the same story, only without the union safety net. Which went as well as you can imagine.
My parents constantly encouraged me and were happy to see me pursue a white collar path because they didn't want me to go through the same thing when I got older. A lot of the shortages is cultural: Parents steering their kids out of said path as much as possible, sexism/racism and so forth. But then there's also the pay issue where the pay doesn't match the labor intensity nor are there many safety nets unless you're part of a union.
Re: Why America has so few carpenters
#36I'm a little surprised it cites carpenters make more than real estate agents. I'd assume a full time agent (not your neighbor who just happened to have a license) could make more than 50k a year. If I recall, average home price now sells at 300k. A realtor keeping 2% after fees...buy/sell 10 houses and that's 60k.
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Re: Why America has so few carpenters
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
they are not upping pay, because it's not profitable. to pay ppl enough $ to entice them to do carpentry is not profitable, hence so few of them. I remember climbing a 4,000 ft mountain in a day in the hot sun..you could not pay me enough $ to ever want to do that again, and even if you could, it would never be profitable. That's why things are airlifted.
Yeah but carpentry has to be done and is getting done. It’s not so expensive you stop the job and wait for a lower price. My guess is you just use other unskilled labor and go for good enough. Maybe a true skilled carpenter isn’t worth the premium or the value isn’t clear to the buyer
The way it works is you have a subcontractor pay an immigrant under the table and get it done.
The US clamped down on Mexican border crossings. Guess what? There’s no labor. Who would have thunk it.
Re: Why America has so few carpenters
#38Quoted post unavailable.
It’s talking about hiring discrimination, so that information seems relevant to me. I’d bet that a number of groups would face hiring discrimination in the trades in the US, here in Australia, etc.
A majority of construction workers in San Jose, CA are Hispanic, as are the construction companies.
Maybe they discriminate against Blacks. Maybe they also discriminate against folks whose ancestors came from a diferent country. (Do Mexicans tend to like Columbians?)
That said, if there's discrimination in construction in San Jose, it isn't by whites.
Re: Why America has so few carpenters
#39My parents met when they were both working construction. My mom was a surveyor and a laborer at various times; she helped get my dad into the union (Philly) and he was a carpenter. My mom stopped it to raise me and my sibling; my dad did it until it entirely broke his body. (I would not be writing this as a college-educated adult if he hadn't had a union pension that kicked in on disability.) I know precisely one per…
Here in Germany about 50% of high school graduates go into a traditional vocational program, many of which are crafts. Electrical work, the car industry, machinery, carpentry, woodwork and so forth.
My family (with me being the first exception) is all blue collar and I understand that construction is uniquely taxing physically but from my parents and people younger I've never heard horror stories about lost fingers or anything like that you're used to from very old people who work in trades. It's definitely possible to do these jobs safely and with good pay nowadays and safety regulations as well as better tools have aided a lot.
A lot of it I feel has to to with culture. If you have a guild system or something comparable that values the crafts and make sure payment and standards are met it's very different from letting people work themselves into the ground.
Re: Why America has so few carpenters
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s talking about hiring discrimination, so that information seems relevant to me. I’d bet that a number of groups would face hiring discrimination in the trades in the US, here in Australia, etc.
A majority of construction workers in San Jose, CA are Hispanic, as are the construction companies. Maybe they discriminate against Blacks. Maybe they also discriminate against folks whose ancestors came from a diferent country. (Do Mexicans tend to like Columbians?) That said, if there's discrimination in construction in San Jose, it isn't by whites.
Why would that discount its relevance? It just says that he faced discrimination. And why would a majority of Hispanic-dominant companies mean that the remainder wouldn’t discriminate? Presumably it’s something he raised as a challenge when interviewed.