For the fourth year in a row, they have been unable to hire another grader operator. Last fall, I was off work sick for 5 days and they had to shut a job down. I was asked to attend a job fair today with some co-workers. There was no interest among the kids in grader work. I spoke to the manager in charge of a heavy equipment course, and they have no grader in their program. I told him that there is a province wide shortage of grader operators. Said they had a program, but there wasn't enough interest. I think my position just became worth a whole lot more money. But seriously, not sure what will happen when us older guys retire.
I wonder if it’s something else that one day will go autonomous like the large mining trucks. There’s no extra operators here either. On the interest side, might be a lot. I’ve noticed in the last 10 years or so here, lots of women operators (crawlers and everything else), truck drivers, welders, and everything else.
Same problem here in North Carolina. We have 3 stone base crews and can never find enough qualified operators. It seems like we always have 1 crew with a substandard grader operator just so we can keep the crew running. I guess in a way it's job security because I always have to go finish their jobs, but that gets old after a while.
I did remark to the boss that it's better for me if you don't find anyone so I can be more independent and saucy
Maybe this is why they have those high speed dozer things which look like a GPS grader blade on the front of a farm track tractor.
Automation will be the answer to not enough operators. Say hi to the robot next time you pass a grader.
There are times when they treat me like a robot
I hope you aren’t getting flooded out where you are. I seen some nasty pictures earlier today on FB
we cant find qualified welders so I fell your pain north Carolina has a lot of talent its just hard to find
we got a robotic forklift all I can say is I hope they can make a grader better then a forklift
The ice here left without too much fuss. Some people up river had flooding, and a few camps were taken by ice jambs. I closer to the coast so the river is almost a mile wide
Glad it’s all good. Somebody posted a picture of 2 small sharks beside escalators. I assumed it was photoshopped, but sounded like bad flooding just the same.
Grader guy's are hard to find, I have been doing our roads in this area for over 15 years now which is about 60 roads, we have spares for your days off in our shop but you end up going and fixing the roads they did when you come off vacation, our spares just don't seem to care or have any pride in their work to busy talking on their cell phones I guess, i'm not sure if I could do fine finish grading or prep before laying pavement, i'm used to maintenance grading county roads, most of my roads are done by eye with a meter check for grade and crown every now and then, lots of ditching and culvert clean outs also which I really enjoy.
They tried a guy a few years ago that worked out west. Once he found out my grader had no GPS, he wouldn't even try it. DOT here does not do GPS jobs, I mean they set their grades, and alignment with GPS, but they don't share the info, so stakes and string are still used for fine grade. If we were in Moncton, a GPS might be worth it, but not enough work here for it. My 940 is a 2011, and it doesn't have 3000 hours on it. My Maulden however gets about 2000 a year from the end of May till the middle of December. That reminds me, I better dig out my boots, and dust off my lunch can.
There's a shortage of good help on anything here in NC. Anybody that can run equipment and take care of it has been scooped up. Not many good grader operators left, and good luck finding a pan operator.
I think one thing that needs to be done is to get rid of many of the so call "guidance counselors" in the high schools. At least around here they will only suggest going into the trades to the kids who are causing trouble in the regular schools. Trade schools are kind of a dumping ground to get the trouble makers out of their hair. And this is nothing new as I was caught up in this the other way around fifty years ago. I was not "allowed" to enter the local trade school program because I was "college material" as the "miss-guidance counselor" said! The day after graduation I was wearing a hard hat and shoveling under a conveyor in a stone quarry! A couple years later when the company started their "Central Shop" I was given the chance to go into that. I just wish I had had the chance to get some formal basic training back in high school I'm sure I would have had a better time of it. One has to think that those high school guidance counselors are getting a kick back from the people who run the college loan scams. So much per student they talk into going to college and get stuck with a loan that will take them halfway to retirement to pay off for the majority of the college kids!
Here in rural-ville most of the good tradesmen are their own boss. Vocational school is one thing but it feels like half the work is running the business in the office. I was never offered any business or financial classes but my partner took some (of his own initiative I think) and he has lots of good understanding that I wish I had gotten. I keep threatening to myself to go to night school but never get around to it.
I think nc needs to start a college just for the trades and make it one of the best in the country to offer everything anyone could imagine and want
The biggest thing needed to find good talent is to raise the wage of the working man. Raise it enough and there will be multiples of folks to chose from.
In many cases that is very true of any job classification. Seems to be worse for mechanics where they not only want you to have several years of experience but also thousands of dollars in tools! Then many places expect you to start working for only a few dollars more that if the hardest part of the job is to remember to ask: "Do you want fries with that?"
I wrench full time on a 1 week on 1 week off shift but I'd love to run equipment or drive truck on my time off. Not much interest from companies on having a guy available only 3 or 4 days a week though.
hell I weld id love to be able to work for a company and run equipment to but that's just a pipe dream
Once they find out you can fix, that's the only thing anyone will let you do. If you want to operate, you generally have to own your own machines. I tend to think education is a good thing but that there are more types of education than just verbs, nouns, formulae and art projects. How many kids would be interested in just how to tear down and assemble an engine and then finding out why it works. I don't know many young men that gave a rip about english literature but most will get intense when someone talks about how to do a brake job on a highway truck. Put a kid in front of a machine lathe and show them a bit about what it can do and they are all eyes and ears. Most will be real interested and learning how to weld and see what can be done with it. That kind of learning isn't offered in high schools anymore. Problem is many don't catch on to that kind of learning until they are in their twenties and found out they can live on the streets begging on the corners and stealing stuff at night to feed their drug habits.
If I ever apply for an operating or trucking job I'm just gonna say I was a labourer if that's the case.
Wages for a grader hand are pretty good here. Our stone base guys start out at $ 52,000 a year plus a truck , vacation, insurance etc... I'm in the $80,000 range. The problem is that very few people these days want to put in the effort to learn their trade. Everyone wants to start at top wage without being qualified. " Minimum experience = Minimum wage"