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Thursday, November 8. 2018

Scientific Survey: Cost of unskilled labor where you live, for odd jobs

I'd like to do a Maggie's Scientific Survey of the cost of unskilled labor where y'all live. I mean jobs like lugging and hauling and lifting indoors and outdoors, barn and garage clean-up, and jobs like paper-filing, house-cleaning, and junk-removal. 


Around here, these jobs cost 20-30/hour. They will ask for pay in cash. Apparently high school kids no longer are willing to do this work. It's too hard for their delicate selves. I would like to think that in Ohio or Missouri American youth would jump at a couple of hours' work for gas money.

Posted by The Barrister in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 16:07 | Comments (20) | Trackbacks (0)

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Where I live (Yuma, AZ), I've seen a couple of guys do 4 hours of light landscape work and pocket $40. Not 40 each, 40 total.

And you'll have multiple teams coming by offering to take on the work.
#1 Agammamon on 2018-11-08 16:18 (Reply)
In rural NW Arkansas, you can get young folks to work all day, most any day at unskilled labor (and sometimes semi-skilled labor) for $10/hr cash.
#2 Michael K. Rose on 2018-11-08 16:30 (Reply)
We just got some quotes to have some guys come and rake leaves. $50 an hour and have to have 2 men and minimum of 2 hours. If you want them vacuumed and taken away after raking it is $200. When I was in business over 10 years ago we tried to get high school and college kids to work for $25 and hour to help us load out truck. Not one single kid would do the work. Too soft.
#3 JC on 2018-11-08 16:30 (Reply)
I should have included that this is for a suburb of St. Louis MO.
#3.1 JC on 2018-11-08 18:44 (Reply)
In my low-cost, low-wage, deep south, largish city locale, I pay my weekly lawn care service, a licensed, tax paying, ethical concern, $35/hour/man for pretty heavy yard work requiring a goodly amount of tools and equipment. My place is a hilly half acre that somewhat resembles a virgin forest, and there's a good deal of debris and undergrowth removal required a couple times a year. They're on time, fast, and tidy up nice. I think they're worth it. I did that work on my place for 50+ years and know what's involved. The downside is I have probably $10k-15k worth of professional tools and equipment starting to rust away. Probably should sell them, but dread the hassle.
#4 BillH on 2018-11-08 16:36 (Reply)
Bill H......sell/trade that stuff to the guys doing the work. Its a win win. You get the work done, they get some decent tools at a good price.
#4.1 vichris on 2018-11-09 13:56 (Reply)
Seacoast area of New Hampshire next town over from UNH. I found a couple of guys on the track team who will work like bulls for $100/day each. Well worth it and I usually throw in lunch.
#5 Galway Boy on 2018-11-08 17:07 (Reply)
Weed whackers wanted $40/hour minimum of 2 hours. When I told them they would need to use the blade instead of the stringy thing, they told me I would have to pay for the rental on that piece of equipment (the blade). This is for using one of those hand held weed whackers! Dropping a pine tree is anywhere from $60--$200 and does not include clean up just some limbing. The ranch kids all have to stay at home and work. The young people/teenagers of a university town can't or won't do this kind of work.
#6 Apple Pie on 2018-11-08 17:10 (Reply)
You can't get kids to do work anymore. It's been that way for 20 years.
#7 LWS on 2018-11-08 17:13 (Reply)
As I posted last week, Task Rabbit guys want 30-40/hr.
#8 Bird Dog on 2018-11-08 17:13 (Reply)
Around where I live, lots of odd jobs but different ones charge differently. There are still teen jobs here for random help that probably run about $10/hour. But adults probably are in the $15/hour range. Depends on what kind of work.
#9 MissT on 2018-11-08 17:21 (Reply)
NW of Philly teenage boys from our church work for $10 hr. Our house cleaner gets $40. My son, before his first "real job" also hired out to people @$10 for odd jobs. My daughter is getting $8 at the supermarket.
#10 Oldblood on 2018-11-08 20:16 (Reply)
Rural Georgia, you need day labor you go over to the trailer park on the west side of town where the young Hispanic men all live 8 or 10 in a two-bedroom trailer and few of them know much more than a few words of English. $100 a day and lunch and drinks is generous pay, just don't use any words that sound like "La Migra". They'll clear underbrush, clean up a jobsite, paint a barn, move furniture - they may not be experts but they're enthusiastic workers.

A half-mile from the trailer park is the local college - don't bother trying to find anybody willing to do odd jobs on a casual basis over there. They all get allowances from Mom and Dad, they've never been hungry, they've never done any sort of hard work where the main reward is seeing the job done. You might call them "spoiled", I call them uneducated. Something wrong with your upbringing if you've never learned the value of work.
#11 Jerryskids on 2018-11-08 21:29 (Reply)
Here in suburban Cincinnati, you can't get kids to do much. If I can get one to rake leaves, spread mulch or shovel snow, it's at least $10 per hour. I do have a neighbor boy cutting the grass ... takes him about 30 minutes for $18. I think it's too much, but the "pros" all want $40 - 50.

We don't yet have the Big Box "pick-up line" around here like in Chicago or the West and Southwest. So while a lot of services employ Hispanic folks, it's hard to find them as day labor. Other adult males are equally impossible. So prices for almost any hired work are going up ... demand outstripping supply.
#12 N E Brooks (Link) on 2018-11-08 21:51 (Reply)
Southwestern Idaho, where minimum wage is $7.75/hr, I pay the 21 year-old son of a friend about $12.00/hr to do grunt work on our property. The kid is a hard worker, gets work done quickly and without complaint. I don't have to watch him to see if he's slacking off.

He's used to hard work though in his family's business; I can make use of him when things get slow.
#13 KPP on 2018-11-08 22:24 (Reply)
In the northern Outer Banks of NC seasonal money drives the cost of labor.
Year round employment starts ~ 12$/hr while peak season pickup work is in the 20$'s and winter, when the tourist bucks are gone, is lucky to get what you get if there's any to be had.
#14 Voluntold CAB on 2018-11-09 06:42 (Reply)
I live about 30 miles east of Austin, Tx in a rural county with a population of 75,000. I have several unskilled laborers who work hard for $16 per hour. I hired a master carpenter for $40 hour and his assistants for $25/hour. An experienced painter charges me $30/hour and his assistante $20/hour.
#15 Jim on 2018-11-09 10:31 (Reply)
In Albuquerque NM unskilled labor runs $12-$20 per hour depending on whats being done. Skilled labor (masonary, siding, stucco, landscaping, sprinklers, ....etc) is about $25-50 again depending on the job.
#16 vichris on 2018-11-09 13:52 (Reply)
I'm in eastern part of Los Angeles County. Paid $20/hr per man to clear a steep hillside of tumbleweeds and brush a couple months ago. It was hot and hard work. I also bought lunch.
#17 Walt on 2018-11-09 14:17 (Reply)
I raised my own labor force. Three boys, currently 15, 16 and 21. I frequently rent them out to my parents (living about an hour away) for yard work, cleaning and other heavy labor. It's a win-win all around. My kids get extra spending money, plus time spent with their grandparents, plus absorbing the philosophy that people take care of their families. My father gets someone else to do the heavy work that he really shouldn't be doing, without hurting his pride (he's just helping his grandsons to earn some extra money to buy the latest video game). My parents get more time with their grandkids. So far, this system is working out very well!
#18 Calico on 2018-11-09 15:40 (Reply)

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