Looming labour shortage

[Bsuds]

We had neighbours exactly like that once - as well as the couple's that bought our last two houses. In all three cases, the house's went on the market within a year of buying it.

That's what happened to the first owners of our house 28 years ago. It's not anything new.

[Dizzy1]

That's what happened to the first owners of our house 28 years ago. It's not anything new.

No, its not new - but its getting worse and worse.

[LTD]

no its not

[Dizzy1]

no its not

Its gotten easier and easier to get more and more credit than 30 years ago, never mind 50 years ago. More and more youngsters are falling into the trap.

[LTD]

no its not

Its gotten easier and easier to get more and more credit than 30 years ago, never mind 50 years ago. More and more youngsters are falling into the trap.

for every one couple that things go sideways for theres a thousand that do just fine that's how it is and how its always been, i think a lot of people would be surprised at how many people actually do have money here not everyone is mortgaged up to the eyeballs, plenty of folks actually buy those quads sleds and boats with actual cash money

[RupertBear]

Getting back to the looming labour shortage, has anyone tried to hire someone from the trades for a one-off reno job?
It seems the good ones are locked in with contractors, while many of the others quickly show why they're lone wolf workers.
If I was 25 years younger, I'd be going into one of the trades.
As much glitz and glamour there is in the tech industry, these techies still need homes to live in.

[Dizzy1]

for every one couple that things go sideways for theres a thousand that do just fine that's how it is and how its always been, i think a lot of people would be surprised at how many people actually do have money here not everyone is mortgaged up to the eyeballs, plenty of folks actually buy those quads sleds and boats with actual cash money

Uh huh - that’s why Canada leads the way in the highest rate of private debt

[Urban Cowboy]

for every one couple that things go sideways for theres a thousand that do just fine that's how it is and how its always been, i think a lot of people would be surprised at how many people actually do have money here not everyone is mortgaged up to the eyeballs, plenty of folks actually buy those quads sleds and boats with actual cash money

Uh huh - that’s why Canada leads the way in the highest rate of private debt

Yes, and also explains why so many jacked up pick-me-ups, were abandoned in the fields, when the oil industry crashed in Alberta.

I do know some baby boomers who purchased boats, ATV's, or snowmobiles, and paid for them in cash, however none of them engaged in a frivolous lifestyle when they were younger, so now their homes are paid off, and they can afford to go on vacation a couple of times a year, something they never did before, and they can afford to own a boat and pay the moorage.

[Glacier]

Dizzy was talking about Kelowna, not BC. Kelowna's population is quite young, not relative to Canada but to BC. The vast majority of places in BC have older populations than Kelowna.

Statistics Canada doesn't agree:

Average age of the population Kelowna - 44.0 BC - 42.3
Median age of the population Kelowna - 45.5 BC - 43.0

http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CMACA&Code1=915&Geo2=PR&Code2=59&Data=Count&SearchText=british%20columbia&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=All&TABID=1

Wrong. Remember than Vancouver and Surrey are by far the largest cities in BC, and they are quite young. This brings the average down. Just randomly pick a community in BC, and the odds are that it's older than Kelowna.

[Verum]

Dizzy was talking about Kelowna, not BC. Kelowna's population is quite young, not relative to Canada but to BC. The vast majority of places in BC have older populations than Kelowna.
...
Wrong. Remember than Vancouver and Surrey are by far the largest cities in BC, and they are quite young. This brings the average down. Just randomly pick a community in BC, and the odds are that it's older than Kelowna.

Firstly, that's an essentially worthless measure, but even still, you are still wrong because the term "place" is not restricted to city, town, room, lake, chair, etc. but can simply be anywhere there is a single person (since the average age of people in a place with no people is a meaningless concept and doesn't contribute to the whole). If you then create every possible "place" from these individual places (which is an incredibly large number, but that's not important right now), the average age would still be the same as the average age for the entire population. Therefore, the average age of people in all of the places in BC is the same as the average age of the people in BC. Since Kelowna has an older than average age for BC, it has an older than average age than all the places in BC.

Also, this sentence is really what I was addressing and it's simply wrong:

Kelowna's population is quite young, not relative to Canada but to BC.

The fact that relative to BC as a whole Kelowna has an older than average age would demonstrate that this sentence is wrong as is.

[dirtybiker]

Getting back to the looming labour shortage, has anyone tried to hire someone from the trades for a one-off reno job?
It seems the good ones are locked in with contractors, while many of the others quickly show why they're lone wolf workers.
If I was 25 years younger, I'd be going into one of the trades.
As much glitz and glamour there is in the tech industry, these techies still need homes to live in.

Top rung are harder to get, just have to wait in line.
Bottom rung are easy to get, but shoddy and lazy.

People want to get paid for what they are comfortable doing.
Grew up raised by Tech ?

or

Helping Ma and Pa with chores, reno's, projects and/or hobbies ?

[dominik]

I'd like to add, that there are also those who work their butts off but realized that even with a steady job they cannot make ends meet.

@LTD it is great that you are a glass is half full kind of person, however the reality of the matter is that we are drowning here. There isn't just 1 or 10 or 20 or 50 or a 100 people drowning out of a thousand. In fact our recent mortgage stress tests have shown that over 33% will not be able to handle rate increases, another 20% would only weather the increases with either pay raises or substantial reduction of expenditures (there is nothing wrong with saving money) the rest are in fairly decent shape.

The problem is that this paints a grim picture for retail, service and real estate industries (the latter which basically currently carries BC). The moment people cannot spend money (not frivolously, but just some extras) we will see a reduction in the local economies, this will then create a budget shortfall for those who previously had no problem paying their bills, and all of the sudden we land in a very tight spot.

Just because we may not feel the pain yet, we will, we cannot avoid that. We can be happy that we are currently in a good position but at the current rate of job cuts, losses of jobs to technology, the reality is something will have to give, and it is going to be soon.

We may have a labour shortage, but it is based on the fact that with the money earned, you cannot or barely can sustain a life in the Okanagan. (lets forgo the whole move somewhere else argument as that is one hell of a dead horse which can simply not take any further beating)

Vancouver saw this, Jasper, Canmore, and Banff saw this and we haven't learned from any of their mistakes. Now it is our turn, and none of the "But if they were harder working" arguments sticks here sadly.

There was a great post I saw a couple of days ago:

- When I went to college they said get a job to get experience, and make some money flipping burgers on the side,
- When I graduated college and couldn't find a job, they said "what? too good to flip burgers?"
- When I asked for a minimum living wage they said "Flipping burgers is an entry level position and should never pay for you to live off"

In light of the Tim Hortons debacle this actually made a lot of sense, but there is more to it, we are replacing low income or low wage jobs now with electronics, leaving those who cannot find positions but more than willing to work in a situation where homelessness is the likely outcome.

The labour shortage is real, but I do believe that a lot of that doesn't just have to do with bad employees (that would be one hell of a over generalization) but due to the fact that some of these employees have to work 2-3 jobs to survive as full time positions which pay a living wage are very hard to come by (nevermind give you enough hours to qualify for benefits).

The work force in essence is being drained, working 2-3 jobs takes a lot out of even the strongest person. That doesn't make them bad employees but employees who are giving it all and are running on fumes.

Those are my opinions i know, however based on some of the data and statistics available to us.