The gist of it: with each passing decade there’s a growing shortage of construction laborers, resulting in large wait times for housing to be built. Some analysts wonder why the key demographic isn’t showing up.
I’ve seen a few articles in the past few years about young men supposedly checking out of society and work, I wonder if there is a connection between that and this article here because young men tend to be the prime demographic for working this job.
Companies need to pay their workers better.
I can’t speak to the general problem, but I can tell you why I left construction and manual labour more generally.
A lot of the work is still as damaging to the body as it was in 1930.
Toxic coworkers enabled and even encouraged by psychopathic supervisors.
Safety is not only not built in to procedures, but actively mocked and even deliberately worked around, even when doing so slows things down.
And all that for less than double minimum wage for experienced workers when it used to be easily triple minimum wage to start.
Exactly. It’s not worth the strain on the body for the pay.
I’m still am apprentice, and I already make more than I ever did in my first career (20 years as a chef). Journeyman rates are over $40/ hour and once you included insurance and retirement theyre around $80/ hour. Oh and were among the lower paid locals in our state.
I walked off a jobsite because they failed to provide us with safe conditions, had the safety officer on site that day, had the local union officers follow up, contractors apologized fixed the conditions and paid me for my missed time.
If you let them joke about it, they will. If you make them follow it, they will. Safety starts and ends with you brother.
Most construction jobs are not unionized like yours.
I refused to do a job because it was unsafe, and mysteriously found my hours cut to almost nothing shortly after. From 60+ hr weeks to <10.
All the more reason to go join a union
Yep 😊👍 … worked many job sites, never bumped into OSHA. Maybe I was supposed to report the unsafe work environment / employer? shrug