I was getting my oil changed a few days ago and struck up a conversation with a guy. He explained that his son was in the mold remediation business and how hard it was to find good employees.. The Jiffy Lube guy overheard us and chipped in that they're constantly churning through employees and that they will constantly get people who set up interviews and don't even bother to show up. Many of these employers are playing the same numbers games LL's are. Over the past week, I've fielded at least 60 inquiries that have yielded 3 showings with two of those being decent.

I think the bigger question is why? It's really bad with my generation and younger, I'm part of the millennial group. My dad's generation and my grandfather's generation would be embarrassed to be like this. People are just lazy. They have no work ethic. They're not taught work ethic in school. They're not giving an entrepreneurial spirit in school. And it's getting worse.

But the same group of people can tell you every football stat and every show on television and their favorite Super Bowl commercial all while showing you their new tattoos. It's ridiculous.

I thought it was just me. I have a really nice 3/2 Ranch and I have had lots of interest via Zillow/Trulia/Hotpads. I respond promptly asking them if they want to see it and then crickets! I'm at 42 inquiries, 14 showings, 3 actual applications, all of which were incomplete or didn't meet the criteria of 3x rent.

I have dropped the rental price $50. Hope that stimulates some better activity.

"But the same group of people can tell you every football stat and every show on television and their favorite Super Bowl commercial all while showing you their new tattoos. It's ridiculous.

In between puffs on their $300 vapor kit"

David's answer is only halfway correct. Yes, you could staff any job at $100K most likely, but for businesses to pay $100K a year, they would have to be making sufficient profit to handle that. I would guess that Jiffy Lube and mold remediators aren't making enough profits to pay their employees 6-figure salaries.

I am fairly confident of this, since my wife has a friend who does hazmat clean up after storms like coastal hurricanes. They not only do mold, but also asbestos, medical supplies/waste, chemicals, lead paint, etc. The business OWNER makes low 6 figures, but he's also got all the capital risk, he puts in 60 hour weeks, and it took him 5+ years of making $20K or so to build up to that level.

Unless consumers want to pay $150-$200 for oil changes and $10,000 to remove a spot of mold, I wouldn't hold my breath on the magic money tree dumping enough profits to justify paying a guy $100K to change oil....a very low skill, simple job.

"but for businesses to pay $100K a year, they would have to be making sufficient profit to handle that."

Most business models fail because their costs exceed their revenues. And even if it is initially profitable, things change all the time, just ask radio shack, sears, toys r us, etc etc etc.

So either jiffy lube and mold remediation adapt or they will also head the same way.

Haha David. Nonsense. The Jiffy Lube guy and the mold remediation guy can only charge the customer so much. If they charge their customers more, the customer is going to go somewhere else. By default, they can only afford so much in labor.

"The simple answer is that the mold remediation guy and the jiffy lube guy are not paying enough. That is how supply and demand works. If they paid $100k a year , I bet they'd be fully staffed. So all they have to do is increase what they pay until they are satisfied with quality and turnover"

NE, that is the magic of the invisible. The customer will end up at whatever business can make the costs and revenue work.

{{{{{........If they paid $100k a year , I bet they'd be fully staffed......}}}}}}

I don't think that is it. My son earns $125,000 a year, and the requirements for the job are not that difficult or expensive to meet. His firm can't get good employees and has had to hire idiots who break things by stupidity. They always have job openings and they pay a bounty for new employees. How much more than $125,000 does it take to get an American to get up off the sofa and go to work?

My $65 an hour handyman won't show up. How much does it take to get a handyman to work? If people won't work for $65 an hour, how are they supporting their families?

"How much more than $125,000 does it take to get an American to get up off the sofa and go to work?"

"that is how at-will employment works. If employees don't want to show up, the boss can fire them . You will have to pay them more so that you can hire better employees"

There is a generation - or two - now in the "work" force who absolutely do NOT want to work. They just want a paycheck.

I've had this same conversation locally, with many people, from many different backgrounds. They all seem to agree that the problem is lack of discipline / a good example in the home. So many refuse to take personal responsibility for anything they do - from poor customer service up to absent parents.

The parents who are present in their lives make things too easy for them - as do the public schools (dumbing down curriculum)and sports teams(no competition / everyone's a winner).

Throw in a lack of religious moral compass, ridicule those that have one, and promote "do whatever pleases YOU". It's a disaster that runs very deep in our society, with no easy fix.

There are a number of factors at play. First, the economy has picked up and those that want to work do not have any trouble finding a descent paying job. The low-end employers like Wally world have gone from $8 to $10 to now $11-12 per hour to find descent help.

Second, there is a general lack of motivation from a larger portion of society. Fifty years ago almost no one wanted a handout, it was embarrassing to admit that you needed welfare, and those that found themselves at time on it worked hard to get off of it and the community helped through encouragement and jobs. Now it is 180 away from that, there's a whole sub-society that expects to receive the handouts, privileged feels responsible for "under-privileged" and instead of helping them up they simply throw them scraps. Statistics that show the increase in the percentage of population taking government hand-outs (housing assistance, free phones, food assistance, disability, the list goes on) has grown astronomically.

Third, there is a whole socialist movement now growing that doesn't believe in free market principles. Everyone should have everything they want without the toil and struggle to get there. The only way to do this is to redistribute wealth and we know what happens when you entrust responsibility for wealth into someones hands that hasn't been trained through hard knocks. This leads beyond the hand-out thinking into socialism which ultimately will have the same outcome as every other nation that has gone down that road over the last 100 years, we will be turned into a 3rd world economy.

Happiness has nothing to do with financial health.

I wonder which factor contributes most to Nordic happiness:

GKARL, thank you for sharing.

NE, They also can tell you every restaurant and location.

David(MI), that is a good point and would have to agree. Here were I am no employer wants to pay. On the other hand people today are lazy and unreliable.

Sid, very good point on welfare, I would have to agree there to. A lot of people lie and take advantage of the system and need to be caught and put on the work force in prison. I think they should have to be drug tested like employees. I bet that would stop a lot of it.

MikeA, It has also been realized that Walmart and others have cut hours as a result and thus people are actually making less then they were. According to social media anyway. I agree the hand outs are crazy. Your third point sounds like government officials that can't manage money.

6X6. Why would you cut hours to a good employee when you have more work than you can find good employees for? I should say, cut hours below 39 so they don't qualify as full-time. Let me give you a hint, low end employers rarely fire marginal workers (opens the door to legal cases) so they simply cut hours until they quit.

Our family has been in the rent business since the 30's and lucky to have started and stayed near college campus areas where my ancestors taught and worked so I guess it has been ingrained to my dna. I don't have a continuous formal education like lots of those tenants end up with so I am not sure where they are headed or where they end up, but I am the guy who has educated himself in a few hydraulics and mechanical specialties that keep people seeking my skills. I have a hard time finding helpers who can stay focused on the project long enough to absorb what the big picture is - a working steam boiler or a dual frequency power plant, the same trickle effect with replacing a waste line stack completely and fishing in supply lines also. Then running electric cable without tearing open the skin of the cable or your fingers, hands and arms. The detail skills have been lost for more than a whole generation, when I was a freshman in high school our graphic arts class printed 3 local newspapers, sophomore set type for business cards, junior built molds and made our own motorcycle pistons but the best part of that year was making gunpowder to launch our hand built rockets. I lost focus on my senior year with some girl hauling me away to kiss me behind the library then my studies began to stagger but I still wrote several multi level games to play on the mainframe computer that cost 60bux an hour to have access to. That girl chiseled away my computer fund with movies, amusement park adventures to Cedar Point and even went fishing with me until she got her own job.

NE, why would I loan you loan at 3% when I can get that on my FICO savings accounts? Hint: the answer is in my answer.

"

There's part of the problem too. Motivation to buy a lotto ticket for instant (fake) wealth, but no drive for what it really takes.

Take that same million and promise it to them at the end of 30 years of showing up on time, doing a good job, staying sober and not being a general scumbag overall and they'll stay right on the couch and blame people like you and me and the government for their misfortune..

Do we want to pay more just to motivate someone or do we want to hire people with that natural motivation and help them learn and grow?

David, your posts are very amusing.

When you have spotlight politicians like B. Sanders and AOC (not to mention most of the teachers and college professors) out there telling young people that they should expect to get education, healthcare, food, marijuana and other drugs, and housing for free and that they are all basic human rights then you have created just the type of younger generations as you would and should expect.

The lazier the younger generation gets the more reliant they become on government handouts and the stronger the Socialist/liberal party becomes. It's a self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling societal dive into the underbelly of the one and only political party that can provide for those who don't want anyone else to have anything they can't have. They also believe that if anyone has more then that person should have it taken from them and redistributed.

I think this issue is related more to acculturation and has nothing to do with socialism or one politics per se. Outside of a small group of people, the average American can't even identify half of the states in the union on a map, let alone get into the tenets of socialism, capitalism or any other economic or political system. Most of this has been reduced to jargon and soundbites to explain a phenomenon that is far more complex and far more threatening to the country than is generally acknowledged.

You can tell where a society is at by what's popular. You can determine the desires of the people from what's in the media. To me the central question is what is in the media and why?

Unless I'm in someone's waiting room, I watch no TV and I'm very selective about what I take in on the internet. The most popular things are sports and entertainment. These things are larger than life and the shows themselves along with the commercials tend to promote rampant hedonism and mindless consumption. The folks who promote this stuff don't think that way, however, they're able to very effectively sell products that way. Consumption rather than work is what's promoted. Is it any wonder that people expect to get stuff without work?

The whole idea of "getting stuff" is problematic in itself. That thought pattern gives rise to the idea that one doesn't need to rise out of bed once they get a paycheck because they had enough to "get stuff" on payday so they'll only work again when they need more stuff. The stuff is generally a bunch of crap that has no worth once it leaves the store. A lifetime of this type of thinking leaves many folks running in place. The choices of casual relationships, having kids when you're not ready, doing something stupid like taking your boyfriend's car without permission and then getting felony charges behind that nonsense is also goes along with all of this. All of that means getting 100 inquiries for 1 decent tenant or people who don't want to get out of bed even if they're getting paid.

The other day, I was thinking about why does someone rob or steal stuff ? It's really something to think about. Rarely does someone rob or steal for a necessity like food---most people work for that. No, people rob and steal for "stuff"; stuff that's absolutely worthless and only has perceived worth because it's been promoted. Basically, lives are taken or ruined for "stuff".

Amen GKARL. The problem and solution is way more complicated than a simple pay raise.

Get a pay raise = buy more expensive garbage you don't need.

The problem persists.

My wife wonder why I don't go out much and don't have many friends. Not much to see out there. Don't want to set myself up for disappointment.

Nobody understands start small and work for big. I started working at age 19 for $11,000 a year. I still work for the same employer, 35 years later. I will be retiring from my day job in about four years.

Over the past few years, there's been a lot of talk about China's unfair trade practices and etc. I believe that's a complete red herring. The "threat" from China (or anyone else for that matter) falls along a few basic lines:

1) Intact families

2) Work

3) Thrift

On the last point, the Chinese save upwards to 25% of their income compared with .5% (1/2 of 1%) for Americans. For those who critique socialism, let's note that China has what's characterized as a socialist market economy that is poised to over take the US. When one compares the relative saving rates measures alone, it becomes clear the reason we have to import capital from them to fund this nation's profligate spending. China holds about 30% of US outstanding debt as they recycle excess dollars from trade deficits into US markets. That happy state of affairs will not persist, that much is clear, particularly as the needs for internal investment grow in

China.

If we look at this from a big picture standpoint, beyond our issues as landlords, employers, conservatives, liberals or whatever, it's also clear that a massive comedown is in the offing for our country but no one talks about the problem, let alone takes a deep dive on policy solutions.

What would it mean for me as a LL if Americans were more like the Chinese in terms of values? (BTW, this is not unfamiliar with folks as Americans were like this generations ago). I'd have far better tenant choices. Employers would have better employees. National productivity would rise. Folks with "stuff" to ply would be hurting though. Mind you, I have no policy prescriptions to offer here but one has to recognize how big of the problem this is beyond landlording, partisan blaming/infighting and etc. This is an issue of changing the culture. This is also an issue of recognizing the complete failure of those who lead us at all levels.

{{{{...... it is the invisible hand that determines market pay. ....}}}}}

"when it moves on, it moves the jobs with it, to China " I would like to know how mold remediation jobs and jiffy lube jobs move to china?

David, when signing the lease with my very first tenant, I added the daughter on the lease because she was 18, in her senior year of high school. Daughter was going outside to talk on the phone, but I was new and stupid. Should have decline that tenant group right there, if someone on the lease could not pay attention while we went over the lease.

A few months after high school graduation, daughter moved out to her own place. I didn’t take the daughter off the lease though, Tenancy went bad, I ended up giving Notice to Vacate. Mom was very concerned, careful to not let things get to eviction, as her daughter was still on the lease, Mom didn’t want daughter to end up with eviction ( mom didn’t have any evictions either, but was most concerned about daughter. )

Mom said daughter had a hard enough time finding a place to rent because she (daughter) was on full disability because she is deaf IN ONE EAR!!!! Daughter was not working, was getting FULL benefits! And yet, she talks on the cellphone all the time. By my way of thinking, daughter would be uniquely suited to work any of the phone jobs where a headset is worn on one ear. Wouldn’t have any interference noises coming in the other ear. She could be a 911 operator, or ??? She certainly could do oil changes or mold remediation. (Daughter always kept the home spotless when she lived there.) Most jobs don’t require hearing in both ears. I know a young man who is deaf in one ear, he’s a registered nurse at a men’s prison.

Most persons who get disability benefits, or other benefits DO have the need for those benefits, but there I are so many who should NOT qualify, like this young woman. To my mind, the biggest disability she has is the one that says take the easy way out. She’ll never know the feeling of getting a promotion, of owning a home, of achieving career if she doesn’t step off the dependency train. Sad.

Work is so important to our identities, our sense of self. I am all for giving some support at times, but, unless someone is severely disabled, the goal should always be to end the support, and the sooner the better.