It seems that finding competent people to work is near impossible. We offer good wages, vacation, holidays, some insurance coverage and keeping employees is an ongoing process.
Continued tardiness, family problems, overstated ability are just some of the issues we face each day.
We are fortunate at this time to have an abundance of work, the downside is no employees to get the work done.
Are there any answers or solutions to help correct our situation. Burned out the candle at both ends.

I'm facing the same dilemma. Sales are up 300% but I can't find anybody interested in working. I never thought there would be a day where I couldn't' get someone who wanted to make 20-25/hr for pressing the start button on an automatic machine in an fully air conditioned shop. I'm seriously researching robots at the moment.

We too are having the same issues.
Have work signed thru march of next year.
I have found limited success through our high schools , and If your a NARI member ,check with your chapter,see if there is a training program established.I found 1 great worker there.May be the 3 of us should go in to business together.LOL

I think this is a drum beat hitting pretty much everywhere. I have always blamed it in my area in that we are a rural shop in a rural state so its slim pickings but talking with other shops in metropolitan areas it sounds like it could even be worse. At least when we catch a dud we can usually hang on to the dud for a while because there are no other options. Shops I speak with in metro areas are pretty much dealing with a dead green individual (or two or three) daily/weekly.

Sadly some of my best hires have been #1 women, and #2 newly released incarcerated individuals. If you can get a relationship with whatever local agency in your area deals with placement and you can be clear with them that you are more than happy to help someone who wants help, you can often times get a grateful worker out of the deal as well as doing something very very impressive and rewarding.

Its all a crap shoot. We are in the same boat. Losing work that I cant in good faith commit to because my workforce (and supply chain) sucks at the moment.

My shop is in an area where any other job prospect is 40 miles one way, and minimum wage, and I cant find someone for 3 days a week to clean and sweep forget about someone I'd trust with their fingers around sharp and spinny things.

I make $40 an hour + benefits, so basically $60 an hour...........is that what you mean by "good wages"?

Maurico, your shop hiring? That's about $75/HR more than I make....

Ha! I'm with Karl !

Karl, that’s about how much you’d make as a comedian as well

Mauricio, If I was getting paid that I would close my shop and come work for you. How many employees does your company have and where are u located. I'm in Southern Calif. and don't know of any other shops spending that kind of money.

Addressing the general drum beat of no labor, I will say you are looking for the wrong people.
Do not look for experienced cabinet builders, saw operators, etc. Look for people that work with their hands, are mechanically inclined, don't fit not the computer or management tracks they thought would be good for them.

Expecting an experienced cabinet maker to walk in the door and save the day is comic book stuff. Reality says you must make the cabinetmaker. The very best people I ever trained and worked with were folks that did no fit in, did not know what to do, wanted to work with their hands, and had little or no experience in a woodshop. It takes form 2 months to 6 months to make a worker pay off. Expect that, look at the calendar together, and work towards the common goal.

They would thrive in the shop with training and support. If that support did not take, then they were quickly replaced. Since our society (even our chosen industry) does not value working with one's hands, we do not know to look for this quality in interviews.

Once I realized that paying a man more money helps put more in my pocket, then I abandoned trying to get the most for the least.

What Dave said

I have heard "The shortage of labor thing" for many decades

It's not like we are rocket scientists (except Dave)

Grow your own, it works.(not that it is easy)

Hire for attitude and work ethic AND organize so they wear as few hats as possible until they can handle more

Im in the Karl, Bob, Scott, camp in that I want to go to work with/for Maurico lol. I know Union shops around, and also a couple shops operating in the downtown NYC market that dont pay those rates. 125K a year in a cabinet shop on the labor side is killer.

Ive never have a notion of hiring a "cabinet maker" who'll walk in and hit the ground running, know all the tools, be able to operate and maintain. Be nice if I could. Just always looking for someone eager, interested, willing, and hard working, that can retain data for more than 5-10 minutes, remember to shut the light off in the bathroom, and jump in where ever needed rather than trying to look busy to avoid sweeping or emptying the trash.

I feel like an old fart, but finding 2-3 of those criteria, forget about the bulk of them, in an individual is about as elusive as finding the fountain of youth.

Scott,

One solution is to automate your machinery to require fewer employees. You might be surprised at how quickly automation pays for itself.

Our specialties at NuTek Machinery are edgebanders, return systems and automatic stackers.

I'll also echo what Dave said. I have 12 employees on the shop floor. Most were hired with no experience, those that had it had to be unlearned and then retrained. In 25 years in this business I've never hired an "experienced" cabinetmaker that arrived from another shop that was worth keeping, and I've hired and fired over a hundred people. The ones that end up being good either stick around and make good money or they leave and start their own shops, of which I've had several go and do. Cabinetmakers are created from scratch on the shop floor, and cabinet shop owners are the ambitious ones who were naive enough to think they could do it better and resilient enough to make it through the learning curve without going bankrupt.

I work in a Union Shop in the SF Bay Area.

I stay in Chicago area, not much better though...

Being very rural we have had to find solutions to this over the last 18 years. We have had good luck outsourcing with existing vendors but also creating outsourcers. There are a lot of older men out there with a shop or garage & the tools needed to make drawerboxes, fillers, frames, various parts & millwork and even cabinet boxes. With a little training you can have "employees" (they are their own business) that work from home (that's handy these days), work their own hours and increase our square footage & output without having to do the day to day babysitting or output in large amounts of capital. It's a win for you but it's a win for them, in every case they have served other cabinet shops also after a few months. They become specialized professionals.

But if you have to have someone in house. Hire for attitude first, Attitude second and attitude third. Experience means nothing. Don't care what sex, age or color you are. Attitude is everything- with attitude comes loyalty, reliability, toughness and desire to learn.

Mauricio congrats you are in the 1% for that wage, don't ever leave that job you will be hard pressed to find a private shop that can afford to pay those wages.

Thanks to the other posts for suggestions, thoughts and insights.
In the past we had plenty of applicants that were eager and put task to work, young boys to men. Training from skilled workers who have retired or moved on, unfortunately this pool has dried up.

We have tried ROP programs, high schools,newspaper ads, Indeed on social media to get new hires with little success.

Society urged everyone to get a college education even those better suited to the trades, I've been thru 2 recessions and watched many shops close down and the work pool vanish.
Now we live in odd times where u make more sitting at home, and when we auto correct there will be a workforce demanding high wages with no work to be hide.

I wish all of u the best in health,business,and success. We work hard to scratch out a living...good thoughts.

Have you tried Latino workers?

Patrick, we have had Latino, women,old men, young men. I'm happy if they want to work and we are willing to train.

Right now we are in need of installer as i'm 65 and tired of it and my other guys back hurts, we had another installer that decided to work on his own out of the area. We could also use a general laborer with a good attitude.

i speak splanlish so that has not been the perfect situation as you propose, but would learn if i had to.

Thanks for your input.

Around here Latino workers can be found

So Calif

Where are you at?

Patrick, we are in Redlands CA. Unfortunately we have no Latinos working with us right now and are so busy the language barrier might be to much to deal with. We are willing to interview anybody that comes to us with an open mind to them, if we can communicate even on limited basis and they seem a right fit we'll give them a try. Our Installer that just moved on is Latino and only once in a while did we miscommunicate. Probably on my end. Lol.

As an industry, we tend to mine the bottom for labor. The unemployed, the unemployable, the clueless, the drugged, the phone addicts, etc. You have all seen them walk in the door. You have even hired them on occasion. You know regret.

Is this because the apparent goal of modern cabinetmaking is to make what was made yesterday today, but for lower costs? That is, does the incessant drumbeat to be cheaper than the next guy bleed over into our hiring practices? Of course it does. And it sets us up for failure when hiring.

If you must be the cheapest, that race will never be won (by you or anyone), but you can run all you want. Hire robots.

Go for the best. Hire the best. Build the best. Change your life, your perspective. Work towards paying a $40/hr wage, and the shop profiting from that.

Admittedly 180 degrees from conventional thought, but face it, conventional thought does not work. It is time to try something else.

David why not both.

BTW more for less has been the trend since their was an economy

David, I have hired many at 30 -35 over the last 5 years and only one of 12 was worth the money. I believe in taking care of my employees but i am still driving 15 year old trucks and cars, still paying mortgages and keeping equipment repaired and up to date.
I am not dredging for the bottom feeders, instead looking for thriving people to work and progress but hard to find.
We live in an area where the price point is limited and not open pockets, we build very quality cabinets and stand behind our work, never leaving details unfinished. This comes at a cost to me but its what i stand behind.
I find it hard to have a $40.00 hr guy sanding face frames, making drawers, installing hardware on boxes, building boxes. We also need workers that can do these services for less and learn the craft as they progress. Finding these guys is a lesson in its own.

I'm thinking this discussion about finding employees is a lament of the ages. I had the same issue in 1987 when I started my business. But yet somehow we all still keep going. Ford Motor Company had the issues in 1913. In 1913, Ford hired more than 52,000 men to keep a workforce of only 14,000. That became the $5 day, doubling the wage so workers would stay on the job. This isn't a new problem.

In today’s economy, all the good and great employees have jobs and are making good money. I believe that the bottom 15% of the workforce shouldn’t be working and pre covid we were at 3% unemployment, which means you are mining the cream of the crap! My best hires in the last few years have been relocating from other areas.
The difference a really good employee makes is amazing and when I find them I will do anything to keep them! These people make me money by doing 2-3 times the amount of work that a mediocre employee does, they never miss work and take pride in what they do.
I have also found that breaking down task into simple 1 page “this is how we sit it” standard operating procedures makes it easy to train new people, so we can bring in a less skilled person and teach them our way to do it fast.
Lastly the covid benefits have been competing with us for employees, as that benefit was equal to 26 an hour in California

California, especially the bay, isn't a good measure for the rest of the countries wages. It's an anomaly within an anomaly.

Someone I know has a rural machine shop. He has found that what works the best for him is to hire someone out of the job they are already in. He says that if he notices a clerk at the local gas station or a person on the parts counter at the Napa or anyone that he notices are hustling and in general have the characteristics he wants, he'll offer them much more than they can make there and train for the technical aspects. He will also work with single moms who need to pick up kids etc. If he can have a gal that is eager and needs stability and overall a good worker, he can deal with only getting them 6 hrs a day etc.
Poaching from someone else that won't pay as much can work well for the right person and being flexible for certain situations can also pay off well.

I personally have decided to stay owner operator for now. May change in the future, but probably not anytime soon.

I've been in this industry for 30 years and overall we have not kept up wage wise when compared to other trades. Metalworkers, HVAC, Plumbers, electricans, ETC. As an industry we are just now adopting technology that other industries have been using for 20 years. It is not the wage per hour but how efficient the employees are. What new methods are you using or is it "that's the way we've always done it"? Someone has to be computer literate and I mean more than just being able to turn it on and send an email or two. CAD? gotta have it. CAM? gotta have it. When the wages are right the right people will find you. Look at the scratches on the door, are they on the inside from people wanting out or on the outside from people wanting in? Overall take a long hard look at how you do things, are you looking for new methods, new equipment to increase production? You have to increase volume to offset the higher wages.

I'm in the upper midwest and a 1 man shop, but if I were to be in the market for employees I'd look into the auction pages and see who's selling their cows and getting out of farming and go talk with them. Most farmers are hands on in problem solving, fixing things and using tools. They may lack "cabinet making" experience and need some training but most have a strong work ethic and would find relief in only working an 8-10 hour day.