For that one hour of work that you are offering $20, how much do you make on that hour? Why should somebody come work for you? Can they make an honest mistake and not get fired? Try offering paid meals in with that $20 and I bet you get good candidates coming out the woodwork, because it's a different benefit. All you gotta do is go by the MN per diem rate of $42 per day, it equals out to $5.25 added per hour for an 8 hour shift, and $50 per day in high localities or $6.25 added per hour. Good luck!

I almost always buy or provide lunch, clock starts when we leave the house and ends when we get home. I've had guys run over chainsaws, smash up and roll over equipment, I've never yelled or degraded someone for it though they are talked to respectfully and asked to be more careful.

I've had some luck finding guys lately, currently have two who are being trained and one seems like a possible good long term candidate. I just talked about a career path with him, told him he would go to 25 an hour when he could run saws and equipment comfortably which should be a couple months, 30 if he studies and obtains a CDL this winter which I'll pay for. Hoping giving him something to shoot for will keep it interesting and him motivated.


We run a variety of saws, stihl 201 261 and 500i are the main ones, also have husky electric climbing saws as well as huskies 2nd biggest saw which I'm spacing out the number. Stihl 500i is my favorite