Why America has so few carpenters • Hacker News Board

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#241

Post by remus » Mon, May 23, 2022, 8:45 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #209

remus wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently labour is ~35% of the cost of a house [1] though I imagine this varies a lot depending on the house being built, type of construction, location etc. Still, seems safe to assume labour is a large part of the cost. [1] https://www.homebuilding.co.uk/advice/how-much-does-it-cost-...

> Still, seems safe to assume labour is a large part of the cost. Does it? I've read time and again that land is the largest part of the cost - in any place where cost is significant.

Just to clarify, Im saying labor is a large part of the cost, not necessarily the largest. I agree land is probably a bigger cost in a lot of areas.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#242

Post by refurb » Mon, May 23, 2022, 9:22 AM UTC

nickelpro wrote: post #240

refurb wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing confusing, but I don't think anyone would disagree. But the point is - that's a pretty rare situation. I'd argue most people who want to do engineering would do it even if it paid less than trades.

I'd argue the exact opposite, the number of people who have a strong preference for one or the other is dwarf'd by the number who mostly care about which pays better, has better benefits, and leads to a better work-life balance. Most people are strongly motivated by money and benefits over personal preference. Most people, especially in manual labor, don't like their jobs, or merely put up with their jobs for the pur…

I guess we'll agree to disagree.

I don't meet many engineers, who, if the trades paid better, would swap their office job and the intellectual nature of the work for a job designing the electrical system of factories and pulling wire. Those are two very different jobs.

People make career decisions based off of a lot of things: interests, training requirements, day to day work environment. Yes pay, but plenty of people take low paying jobs when they could do something else and make more.

If people can make a baseline wage that provides a comfortable life doing a job they like, I could see them foregoing a certain amount of money. I've turned down better paying jobs before.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#243

Post by usrn » Mon, May 23, 2022, 10:55 AM UTC

rdtwo wrote: post #3

Like every other profession with a supposed shortage the pay and work conditions suck. And guess what shortage… It’s like there is a shortage of people willing to pick fruit at 10$ an hour and live in terrible conditions while exposed to harsh chemicals. No shit you need to pay people a whole lot more money

Not to mention illegal immigrants willing to work for half the going market rate because they're not paying taxes.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#244

Post by rufus_foreman » Mon, May 23, 2022, 12:06 PM UTC

ch4s3 wrote: post #70

rufus_foreman wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing with housing. There is no housing shortage, there are just people who aren't willing to pay the market rate for housing. Up your price that you are willing to pay and you will have housing. If you can't pay the market rate for housing, do not be surprised when you do not have housing. Basic economics.

I would argue that there is a housing shortage in many American cities insofar as there is demand for far more housing than currently exists. The housing would be built y the market if it were legally allowed, or not otherwise strongly disincentivized. As such prices are rising faster than inflation. This tells us that demand outstrips supply.

When demand outstrips supply, one thing that can happen is that prices rise until demand matches supply. That's what is happening now. That's not a shortage.

There are all sorts of restrictions on what type of labor is legally allowed. Age restrictions, hours, licensing, unions, plenty of other regulation. But when there is a story on this site about how employers say there is a shortage of workers, the typical answer is "there is no shortage, raise wages". That's because the typical reader of this site isn't someone trying to run a low margin business, the typical reader of this site is someone who moved to one of the most expensive areas of the world and subsequently realized that for some reason, housing is expensive there, so the government needs to make changes.

But that's not a shortage. Just because you can't afford something at the market clearing price doesn't mean there's a shortage. And just because you can't afford something at the market clearing price doesn't necessarily mean the government needs to make changes. You might need to make changes instead.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#245

Post by CountSessine » Mon, May 23, 2022, 3:14 PM UTC

I-M-S wrote: post #196

kortilla wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 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 This is a really lazy analysis that ignores all of the productivity gains that came from automation and information technology. People who put together cars didn’t start making less money, they got replaced by robots.

Between OP's analysis and your reply, there's only one I'd dare to call lazy.

That was an analysis? That was a lazy regurgitation of luddite talking-points that you'd hear in pubs after a few drinks.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#246

Post by boppo1 » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

usrn wrote: post #243

rdtwo wrote: post #3

Like every other profession with a supposed shortage the pay and work conditions suck. And guess what shortage… It’s like there is a shortage of people willing to pick fruit at 10$ an hour and live in terrible conditions while exposed to harsh chemicals. No shit you need to pay people a whole lot more money

Not to mention illegal immigrants willing to work for half the going market rate because they're not paying taxes.

I thought it was shown that in aggregate, illegal immigrants do pay as much or more tax than comparable income demos for citizens.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#247

Post by jlevers » Mon, May 23, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

ricardobayes wrote: post #197

blagie wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with shorter versus longer jobs, in the tech industry, consulting a few years back: - 30-60 minute consultations, I need to charge $600/hour minimum to make ends meet - 1-2 week gigs, I need to charge $300/hour minimum to make ends meet - 6-36 month gigs, I need to charge $100/hour minimum to make ends meet Making ends meet means covering mortgage, health care, etc., not having a decent lifestyle. There…

Any tips on how to get into software consultancy?

disclaimer: i've only been doing this for a couple years...but it's gone pretty well. i've written this more like a story than direct advice, because i think all the twists and turns are relevant.

i went straight from college (dropout) into the consulting world right before COVID hit. i gave myself a year to get the consulting business going, and if that didn't work, i was planning to get a "real job."

i started off by leveraging my existing contacts in the software world: mostly a couple internships that I'd had (one before my year of college, one after). the first few months, i was only working for those two places while i tried to figure out how to expand. i started a blog [0] at this point -- it was mostly nontechnical content, but helped me demonstrate that i'm a sane person and a reasonably good communicator.

i started replying to the "Who wants to be hired?" threads here on HN and got my first couple (small) independent contracts there. then a family friend who runs a high-volume used book business needed his whole inventory/order management system redone from scratch, and i was a) cheaper and b) a known quantity, so he hired me. you can interpret this as me getting lucky, and in some sense it is, but i strongly believe that luck favors the prepared. i certainly wouldn't have gotten that gig if i hadn't been prepping for it, hard. this is when i started to raise my rates.

(you've probably seen this repeated endlessly on HN, but it bears repeating: raise your rates. raise your rates. and then raise them again. to match $XX/hr as a FTE, you need to charge at least 2*$XX/hr as a consultant. ideally a lot more.)

i spent tons of time reading HN and twitter, and responding to anyone who was doing something i found interesting. i went into these interactions with no expectation of getting work out of it -- i just wanted to meet people who were working on cool things. a few of those interactions did turn into work, and one person i met is now one of my best IRL friends. crazy.

at some point, i had to learn about a new amazon service (the Selling Partner API) for that bookstore project, and discovered just how badly documented and tested it was. after a couple months (!!) figuring out how to use it properly, i wrote a few blog posts about it, and people started hiring me from my blog (and now, my OSS SP API library [1]). between that, and a few of those people i talked about meeting via HN/twitter/etc, i've kept busy for the past 18 months. i actually just hired my first part-time employee, which is exciting :)

i think the three biggest things that have made me a modestly successful consultant are:

1. focusing on people over everything else. if you're a consultant, you're a salesperson, and in my experience just being genuinely interested in other people is the easiest and most effective form of sales. 2. writing online. it's cliched, but it works. you don't need that many people to see what you've written for it to be worth it -- i've never gotten more than 150 views in a day on my blog, and usually it's way less than that, but that's been enough to have plenty of work. 3. raising my prices ;)

i make a lot less money than i might by working for FAANG/etc, but i have total time and location freedom, i don't work a ton, and i really enjoy running my own show. ymmv, and good luck :)

[0] https://jesseevers.com [1] https://github.com/jlevers/selling-partner-api

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#248

Post by daniel-cussen » Mon, May 23, 2022, 6:52 PM UTC

rdtwo wrote: post #3

Like every other profession with a supposed shortage the pay and work conditions suck. And guess what shortage… It’s like there is a shortage of people willing to pick fruit at 10$ an hour and live in terrible conditions while exposed to harsh chemicals. No shit you need to pay people a whole lot more money

Yeah there's always a shortage of people willing to do my bidding for free.

It's antithetical. Claiming a shortage means there is not a shortage.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#249

Post by usrn » Tue, May 24, 2022, 2:56 PM UTC

boppo1 wrote: post #246

usrn wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention illegal immigrants willing to work for half the going market rate because they're not paying taxes.

I thought it was shown that in aggregate, illegal immigrants do pay as much or more tax than comparable income demos for citizens.

1) I know a number of illegal immigrants and they do not pay taxes.

2) They couldn't anyway even if they wanted to since they don't have a tax ID.

3) Since their employer is already breaking the law by hiring them paying taxes doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#250

Post by ch4s3 » Tue, May 24, 2022, 5:47 PM UTC

rufus_foreman wrote: post #244

ch4s3 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that there is a housing shortage in many American cities insofar as there is demand for far more housing than currently exists. The housing would be built y the market if it were legally allowed, or not otherwise strongly disincentivized. As such prices are rising faster than inflation. This tells us that demand outstrips supply.

When demand outstrips supply, one thing that can happen is that prices rise until demand matches supply. That's what is happening now. That's not a shortage. There are all sorts of restrictions on what type of labor is legally allowed. Age restrictions, hours, licensing, unions, plenty of other regulation. But when there is a story on this site about how employers say there is a shortage of workers, the typical answe…

> That's not a shortage.

That's literally the definition of a shortage[1], "a condition where the quantity demanded is greater than the quantity supplied at the market price".

> But that's not a shortage. Just because you can't afford something at the market clearing price doesn't mean there's a shortage. And just because you can't afford something at the market clearing price doesn't necessarily mean the government needs to make changes. You might need to make changes instead.

In the case of housing, the government creates the condition whereby there is not enough housing in places where there is the most economic activity. It's a huge drag on the overall economy and well documented.

[1]https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/shortage.asp