In the past we have always hired friends/family of current employees based of recommendations. That's pretty well dried up. Staffing firms are pretty much a dead end(have personally never used them but know others that have with no success) and posting sites are overloaded with posted jobs not being filled. Our customer/vendor base is nationwide and in several industries, everyone I talk to is in the same boat-cant get folks in the door. We're not even looking for anyone with experience as train onsite. If someone would just show up and say they could be on-time, pass a drug test, hard worker, and teachable they'd have a job. How are yall overcoming this unfortunate new trend of not wanting to work or find new employees?

I say the biggest hurdle is compensation. If a company offers a good wage then they won't have a problem finding good, qualified employees. We have no issues finding staff when we need them.

My son has a nice job, but he is struggling to support his family because the rent on a two bedroom apartment is $1800 a month (McKinney). Moving is not a option because any savings would be taken away by increased costs for gas.

We hired our college intern at twice our normal starting salary for a person with no experience.

We also had to wait 3 months for her to graduate.

I have been the receptionist/new patient coordinator all this time.

I'll agree to a point on compensation, but also strongly feel alot is also industry based on what you do. I don't feel compensation/benefits are a factor here as compensation is comparable to the area. Fact is younger generations do not want to work nor want a "blue collar" job or trade. I have talked to several other machine shop owners , and plate suppliers/processors from mom/pop shops to large scale operations with multiple facilities and all in the same boat across the nation, can not get new hires in the door. Some Shops that are into more production run parts have turned to self loading robots/automation to load and run their machines-for some that was their best move as robots do not require wages, insurance, vacation's, never late, and no internal conflicts but those that are not high end production shops and are a job shop or short runs-robots are not a feasible option. Personally-we have a very low turn over rate on employees but as some of the long term employees close in on retirement need to get young talent in to pass on the years of knowledge before it is lost.

Why not hire illegal immigrants at low wages, pay cash (not traceable) . They came for work, us them.

I think you need to define good compensation because I’ve seen and astronomical jump, in many skill sets specifically IT. Even with top end rates there are still huge shortages in certain skill sets like Java Development and overall Cloud/devops computing.

DFW has less then 1% unemployment rate for IT skill sets. The higher cola markets really targeted the lower cola markets such as DFW when work force went remote

I think it's subjective. You do bring up a good point...remote work environment. Potential employees really want this flexibility in those career fields that can facilitate this.

You should try hiring a skilled nurse. Next to impossible.

For my non-profit we haven't licked it yet. Simply had to cut back on the number of people we can help. Sucks to have a waiting list of disabled kids needing therapy, but just can't find therapists to come on board.

My company went 'permanent remote' for about half our staff/jobs.
When Covid hit, we had to spend $$ to implement temporary remote options, to help spread out and protect workforce.
After couple years & things improved, we surveyed temp-remote employees, and half stated they would leave if company shifted back to 'work-at-office'.
Staff was able to maintain, actually increase performance levels, working remotely. Plus it's hard to argue with higher gas prices, sitting in traffic commuting, etc unnecessarily.
So company offered permanent remote for anybody who wished to, and about 90% took it.
Working out good for company now too, as now we are able to now recruit even outside our branch location areas - something we could not do before. No problem getting good applicants for reasonable pay.
For the half that HAVE to work at location - we've had to bump pay to both retain and bring in new staff.

We can not get employees. Our entry level employees can make 60-70k their first year if they want to. Granted that’s not a fortune but it’s also not skilled labor. Our problem is it’s a terrible environment with rotating shifts and fairly high standards on the Bennett Mechanical. The problem with the test is as years pass people have less and less ability to pass the test. Couple all that with people not wanting to work and we’ve been working short handed since covid began or maybe before.

It’s all about compensation and work environment / conditions. I have had zero turnover since Covid first started. Pay people well and treat them right and don’t have them doing crap no one wants to do and you will be able to hire/retain people. There are not any major government hand outs going on now that I am aware of. People are working the market has just enabled many people to get their foot in the door doing different things than they normally would and for higher pay.

I don’t know much about a machine shop but I imagine it as a dirty hot (no AC) job. Nothing wrong with that I have done a ton of welding in my life but when there are other options where people don’t have to get dirty or sweat and can make the same money there is your problem. $20/hr doesn’t seem so enticing when you can work inside at Buccees and make $18. Bonuses and options to make more are huge. For example with my business there are certain times when we are very profitable and when that happens the employee’s pay adjusts accordingly and they can make more than double what they normally do.

We work outside. When it is cold in the winter we don’t start before 9 am so the sun has a chance to warm things up. In the heat of the summer we start at the crack of dawn and shut down before the afternoon heat gets brutal. Yeah we get less done per day working reduced hours but everyone is happier. Production stinks anyway when people are freezing to death or staggering around in 105 degree temps. The employees don’t get shorted hours either. I pay them ten hours a day minimum when we are on a job site even though they might only actually work 6-7 hours.