What did we learn over the last two years? I learned that COVID totally changed the game, and this current labor shortage is because people are tired of begging for work.
For as long as I can remember the bosses at work (any job, pick one) make demands of you, change schedules as it fits their needs, and don’t pay workers for travel time or days off.
Now people are standing up for themselves, and demanding proper pay, and the system can’t handle it. I am grateful that I have a valuable set of skills that doesn’t tie me to one job. Inside the HVAC industry there are actually dozens of not hundreds of different jobs and specialties. Before COVID I was a happy go lucky HVAC tech, you know the kind that drives around in the van filling up coolant and charging you eighty bucks for an air filter? That was me. Then the house calls got shut down for a while, and my boss, the HVAC contractor, started making layoffs. Six months later, he called back offering me my old job at the same pay, and I told him how me and a few of the other laid off HVAC techs were forming our own company. He laughed at us, but he wouldn’t be laughing long because he found himself shorthanded without enough certified HVAC techs. All his best guys had started their own HVAC repair company, and now he was in need of good workers. Here is a salute to every worker out there who ever gave a middle finger to their boss!