absurd lead times for products, lack of skilled labour

[prelude]

Just a "small" rant ;)

I wonder how things are in the southern hemisphere but up north I seem to have real difficulty getting custom / specialised products in decent time or price.

As some of you might know I am in the process of modifying my range rover for world travel and I have been talking to specialized builders for a number of things for years now. Always just about the design phase, not the building of it since I was not certain when I would be at the point that I could get it all done. I have spoken to most of them within the last 6 months, some of them as little as 2 months ago to keep everything "warm" let's say.

After a number of set-backs, mostly to do with very poor customer service from a certain supplier which shall remain unnamed but will never have my business again, I started to contact the different suppliers that I was able to provide them with the final updates/measurements/etc in a week. What followed was a stream of email answers where they all were profusely sorry but could not help me before X. Some have simply not even bothered to answer any more...

To summarize:


pop-up roof builder: after the summer of 2025
tank builder: after week 17 2025
different pop-top roof builder: october 2025 would be the earliest
GVM upgrade: never ending story, has been a 4.5 month wait for at least 1.5 years now


When I uttered my dismay about this situation to several mates during a b'day party recently I am beginning to see a trend! It seems that there is a huge shortage of skilled labour, even more so than I was aware of. Anecdotally I have heard of chippies not having time to do up a bathroom for at least a year etc etc. Though we had an influx of labour from Poland and other east European countries in the past decades, it seems that stream has dried up since they can make enough money back home and the more southerly eastern European countries did/do not provide the same quality of labour (not my experience but have been told).

At the same time when I am talking to a shop owner, which I do since I like to have a friendly chat wherever I go :), I hear nothing but people reaching retirement age without anyone to pass the business onto OR skilled professionals already having retired so there is a lack of capacity in the business. A friend of mine even suggested that what is happening is that certain groups of people have simply upped their wages and reduced their working hours which in turn leads to a shortage of labour capacity.

I wonder if you guys experience the same sort of problems? For me personally I have decided to simply move more work onto my own plate and rely less on highly specialized labour and simplify my needs. ie. a second fuel tank I can mock up myself no worries. If I have to I'll put it together with ductape and then bring it over to a welder to finish it up. It is much easier to find a proficient welder than it is to find a producer of custom fuel tanks. (and with much easier I mean they are all around, still busy though)

One thing is for certain, I used to be a sparky a long time ago but let that go for my "hobby", computers and went into IT. It seems though that I can make probably as much money as a sparky judging by going rates as I can in IT. Even chippies make about the same! and no offence here but in IT I need to learn every bloody day, whereas once you know how to handle a hammer and a saw there is not much new to learn now is there? ;)

I seem to recall to have said it recently in this same forum but: we live in interesting times...

Time to stop yapping and get back to work! [bigwhistle]

Cheers,
-P

[RANDLOVER]

Anecdotally that seems to be the case here too. The most pressing deadline at the moment is to claim any unused health fund benefits as most expire at 31 December, probably difficult to get any doctor, dentist or specialist appointments now, but have a good chance of getting an eye test and ordering and invoicing glasses now, even if they are only delivered next year.

[Slunnie]

It's the same here. People aren't going into the trades. From my conversations, one of the problems appears to be the overwhelming trend towards going to University these days and a reluctance to do manual professions. That said, from what I'm seeing here, heavy diesel mechanic and electricians seem to be different and the kids are still going there but businesses are actively searching in schools with apprentiship offerings. Many of the busineses are losing empoyees also to the better paying mines and when they do lose them then they either cant replace them or they need to move down the 457 visa route where they're actually getting some extraordinary good workers from overseas. What I'm seeing is that many businesses cant turn around work quickly due to backlogs and/or they're working crazy numbers of hours to keep the work going through. One of the mechanics here closed shop, he just couldn't get help in the shop and it was no longer worth his while with the business overheads - so he now does garden/landscape with less stress and a better take home pay.

[3toes]

The kids look at the salaries offered for the role and make rational economic decisions. Those trades that pay well are still sought after. Those that do not have trouble recruiting

Why should someone who flips burgers at a well know shop be paid more than someone who drives a truck long distance? Do not laugh a friend of mine has made the move when realised this. No longer away from home for days and sees far less responsibility required of him for doing the job. Might not enjoy it as much as driving but on balance sees it as a reasonable decision

[JDNSW]

As above!

[AJM]

I see plenty of people (young, old, local or migrant) who want the ‘job’ and all the privileges and rights but fewer want the ‘work’.

I’d be happy we could get a fair days work for a fair days pay.

[oka374]

Yes it's the same here in Oz, have a good mate that has a small engineering/fabrication business that has been going for 40+ years, he's only recently stopped accepting jobs due to health issues at 76 keeping working with his two main sources of work simply because they couldn't find anyone to do the same machining and fabrication.
Both those businesses have now been closed as there owners have reached a similar age and couldn't find any buyers so the gear was sold off, stock went in the bin and the three of them have retired sort of ;-))
My mate realises that nobody wants to buy any of his machinery, there is virtually no raw material left as it has become nearly impossible to buy it here unless you want a container load.
Any manufacturing is done by CNC stuff and nobody has the skills to do it by hand especially if it's a one off.
A much younger mate with a similar business still takes on one off jobs as he like the challenge but the bulk of his work is CNC as it pays the bills and time and material costs are the governors of what he takes on.
He does have access to a scanner that can digitise objects and then allow the machining centre to make stuff but again quantities are the way to make money.
It's truly amazing that you can scan an object, the computer then works out how to machine it, works out any tooling required, sets the size of the raw material and then tells you how long it will take to make along with how to set the machine up.
So for simple jobs there is no machining background required other than a basic knowledge, it's more about IT than an old style machinist.

[prelude]

@3toes that kinda makes sense. But then again, that popular burger joint has had it's fair share of what we modernly call (and I hope we get through here "en-sh..yfication".

Some 6 months ago i was last at the 3 arches and I and a mate of mine were not satisfied with the "quality", if you can speak of such a thing at that place, and when asked it turns out they halved the sauce portions on the burgers, the ONLY thing that made them taste acceptable. On that same day there were large ad's in the shop telling you how much money you would make if you started working there which was, to my eyes, a pretty hefty hourly rate.

Can't blame your mate but I'll make my own burgers if I can help it from now on.

@oka yeah, funny that. Now that you mention it... On my search for specialists to build the stuff I needed I found that many many were asking for a 3d drawing and not just any drawing, specifically in a format they could (in)directly use, not some sketchup file let's say. This has probably to do with the fact that they can convert it for use in programs that run their equipment. For example the fuel tank guy would simply cut and bend the steel by feeding the drawing (in components) to his gear, the pop-top roof guy would create the profiles by simply sending out the drawing to an aluminium fabricator that would feed it into their cutting and bending machinery.

In the end though, with the enormous amounts of shortage of skilled labour I would reckon that the wages of those jobs rise but that simply does not seem to be the case?

Cheers,
-P

[Slunnie]

@oka yeah, funny that. Now that you mention it... On my search for specialists to build the stuff I needed I found that many many were asking for a 3d drawing and not just any drawing, specifically in a format they could (in)directly use, not some sketchup file let's say. This has probably to do with the fact that they can convert it for use in programs that run their equipment. For example the fuel tank guy would simply cut and bend the steel by feeding the drawing (in components) to his gear, the pop-top roof guy would create the profiles by simply sending out the drawing to an aluminium fabricator that would feed it into their cutting and bending machinery.

Cheers,
-P

They will probably still be doing a lot of work to that file, but it tells them what you want. I can assure you they wont just feed it into a machine, that would be a very expensive mistake.