Where are all the laborers?

[Arsavoie]

I'm booked until mid July and you want me to do what?

Garden hose?? Try a few hundred feet of 3/4" braided hose.

And of course, customers always appreciate it when the equipment charged at $55 to $100 per hour sits still while the operator does the work of a laborer.

Then hire the unemployed man that needs to feed his family and pay his bills if you don't want to hire some illegals. Cause you get what you pay for. Or just quit b...ing and do the work yourself

 

[Sutol]

all the labour is over here claiming $300 a week and a free house and doing nothing at all.

 

[RDrancher]

Then hire the unemployed man that needs to feed his family and pay his bills if you don't want to hire some illegals. Cause you get what you pay for. Or just quit b...ing and do the work yourself

Tempting...but I refuse to feed the troll again.

 

[GregbkH]

The sad thing is, is that I'm 55 and I CAN outwork 'em!

Ahhh, so I'm NOT the only one!

I have a 26 year old son-in-law that is worse than Paris Hilton when it comes to manual labor. He's always saying, " Maybe we should take a break" or "Man, it's too hot to be doing this ain't it?". Whimp.

 

[bullbreaker]

Ahhh, so I'm NOT the only one!
I have a 26 year old son-in-law that is worse than Paris Hilton when it comes to manual labor. He's always saying, " Maybe we should take a break" or "Man, it's too hot to be doing this ain't it?". Whimp.

Do like I've done and leave them or people that side with them out of my will/testament/trust etc. People like that I don't even want as one of my pall-bearer(s), might drop me !

Boone

 

[RDrancher]

Maybe you need to get a full time guy? I always liked doing some grunt work but $10/hour part isn't going to cut it for someone that is reliable.

Also is there a legal farm laborer program in Texas? No one in Ontario wants to do farm work for $10-15/hour either so there's a program to bring guys from mexico or central america to do grunt work for months at a time at minimum wage. Maybe you'd qualify for something like that?

Where I'm at $10 for a labor work actually isn't out of line. Believe it or not, there are guys with CDL's still making as little as $12 an hour.

I'd really like to find someone who wanted to learn. In my former life as a concrete contractor I had a few guys that started out as $7 an hour laborers, stuck it out for a few years and learned the ropes, then went on to be licensed contractors. Of course, they're in California with no work to be had...but that's another subject.

 

[jinman]

Finding any consistent help has been a problem for me ever since I moved here to Texas.

I think in your line of work you'll always have trouble finding/keeping workers. The most consistent workers may be illegals or parolees. The fellow who did a remodel job for me last year had an ex-roofer, a couple of young carpenters, and a parolee. The ex-roofer was consistent and a hard worker, but didn't have great carpenter skills. I think he was just happy to be off the roof on hot days. The young carpenters talked about all the people they had worked for and one of them quit about halfway through the job. The parolee was here every day except for one afternoon when he had to check in with his parole officer. He did tile work, but his expertise was lacking; although, his desire and cooperative spirit was high. A Hispanic crew did my concrete work and were on-time, organized, and professional. Their English was not good, but their work was superb. Being the boss is hard in any line of work.

In my high school days, many of us found work mixing mud by hand for brick layers during the summer. I'd bet you won't find many of the kids these days who would even consider doing that even with a mud mixing machine.

 

[TripleR]

If you need to hire someone just to pick up rocks or move a garden hose why hire someone? Get off your tractor and do it your self.

I have to use crutches to get around and even with that can't make it very far.

I would be tickled to death to be able to get off the tractor and do it myself.

 

[rsewill]

I commend you for not wanting to hire illegals but if you want someone to work cheap, who will be there seven days a week, who will work from sunup to sundown and bust their butts doing it - with some training, go with an illegal. It's what many, many businesses do for the above reasons. No complaints, no raises, etc. Perfect employees except for the language barrier.

 

[phiferpharm]

I've use the neighbor kids - one at a time- when I can. They are somewhat reliable as long as I only use them one at a time. Problem is two do the work of less than one, at twice the cost, with too much BS time versus working time. I watched them carrying 10 foot 2x4's one at a time as a team. When I asked if the boards were too heavy for them to carry by themselves, they said it was faster to work as a team. Really? Grammie and I went out and helped them finish. We were able to carry our own individual boards- go figure...