Despite record high confidence, Main Street businesses can't find the workers they need

CNBC ^ | 14 June 2018 | Kate Rogers

[Alas Babylon!]

A labor shortage issue is increasingly weighing on small businesses around the country. This comes despite record-high confidence on Main Street.

In May, one-third of small-business owners reported job openings they could not fill, and 12 percent reported using temporary workers.

Mike Fredrich shows off unmanned presses in his Manitowoc, Wisconsin, company. They're ready to start production at MCM Composites, a 55-person enterprise that makes custom thermoset molding.

The only problem? Fredrich has no one to operate them.

"These tools are heated to 300 degrees," he said. "But we're not running them. Had we had the people for the first shift, we could have been running this all day. But we don't, so they sit here heated, ready to go, with no action."

[Alas Babylon!]

Interesting article here: http://work.chron.com/average-salary-beer-delivery-driver-5541.html

Quote:
2016 Salary Information for Delivery Truck Drivers and Driver/Sales Workers

Delivery truck drivers and driver/sales workers earned a median annual salary of $28,020 in 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. On the low end, delivery truck drivers and driver/sales workers earned a 25th percentile salary of $21,580, meaning 75 percent earned more than this amount. The 75th percentile salary is $39,380, meaning 25 percent earn more. In 2016, 1,421,400 people were employed in the U.S. as delivery truck drivers and driver/sales workers.
:Unquote

Maybe the beer distributor exec needs to pay more than the median?

The benefit could mean increased sales, which would pay for the raise, no?

[CodeToad]

I worked with Coors Distribution and found the beer market to be very brutal. Margins are razor thin. The profit on a case of beer could be as little 20 cents.

[zeugma]

Many are incapable of getting a job due to drug use. poor edication or just plain laziness.

Drug testing weeds out a huge amount of the population from many jobs. Personally, I think most of that is crap. I don't give a damn what folks do on the weekend or after hours, as long as they are ready for work when they get there.

[pierrem15]

What you said. If they can't find workers, they need to start raising the wages offered.

Right now, employers still expect well-trained employees to work for food, as they got after 2008.

If they offered a combination of better wages and training, they could find people.

[Harpotoo]

Welfare for work sounds good to me. Need a new office of From Welfare to Work. Employers call them up, office calls able bodied recipient and tells them where to deploy to. Say no, off the rolls you go.

[catnipman]

a good start would be to reduce unemployment benefits and eliminate “free” everything ... that would get a bunch of people back to work ...

[lurk]

If you can pass a drug test and show up sober, you can get work.

[Obadiah]

While inflation, IMO, is a real concern, how long has the American worker suffered with real declining wages? Remember when employers almost universally offered health care and many offered a pension?

Nowadays there may, possibly, be a bare bones “health plan” that is usually too expensive, and nobody offers a pension anymore. All that’s typically available is a 401(k) with some employer contribution, and many with no employer contribution.

And now you know why the Chamber of Commerce has been in a death struggle to import hoards of cheap labor.

[Alas Babylon!]

I’d say depends on the drug.

I would not want to hire people in a job that requires responsibility of some kind if they were using heroin or other opioids (except with a prescription); cocaine, crack; methamphetamines; bath salts (is there a test for that?); PCP or LSD. Also, glue sniffers and huffers.

Pot or booze I wouldn’t care about, as long as we can be certain no one is stoned or drunk on duty.

[redgolum]

Time to start upping those salaries or sweetening the benefits. That’s part of the dance of capitalism.

I have had to argue with quite a few executives and almost all MBA's that your statement is true. The counter argument is "Well, why would I pay them more? We need to pay them less, or automate!" Or my favorite "We need more subsidies! YOU DON'T RAISE WAGES!!! THAT IS EXTORTION!"

[zaxtres]

Time for employers to stop with the H1B visa and other programs like it. Time for employers to stop looking to pay entry level wages to intermediate experienced employee and intermediate wages to senior experienced employees. Time to stop discrimination and nepotism in the workplace. Or in the case of the government stop giving the job to the person that pays for it before opening the job. I could go on and on. Like someone with 10 years experience but has been away for a certain period of time trying to reenter the workforce has a much harder time than an entry level worker getting the job. Time to syop people on linkedin from using self employed when in fact they are unemployed. So much that needs to stop. So much to list and so little time to do it in that has nothing to do with wages, laziness or collecting welfare. Time for people outside the country to stop lying on resumes, providing false references etc.

[sarge83]

Ding! Ding! Ding! They either can’t pass a drug test or would rather stay on welfare.

[rb22982]

We saved about $20m this year on taxes with the new bill. Unfortunately I work in an industry that primary is valued based on ebitda rather than eps or free cash flow, but the extra tax cash is going to increased dividends and share repos

[rb22982]

Absolutely

[elbook]

class action lawsuit against the NEA for criminal incompetence and dereliction of duty