How much are Home Depot parking lot workers

Couldn't really fit into the title what I wanted to say.

How much does it cost to hire a parking lot laborer in your area?

I don't know if it's like this everywhere, but in Washington there are Hispanic workers gathered every morning in Home Depot parking lots, if you need some labor you stop by, negotiate a price and pick one up for the day.

A contractor friend of mine does it occasionally. He just told me that the minimum you can get one of the guys for now is $25 an hour cash, they won't work over 8 hours, you provide lunch, and you can't push them.
He said he sent one of his Mexicans up there to see if they could get a better deal; no way, that's the going rate.

Who says the economy isn't doing well.

I'm thinking of a career change!!!

Been like that a while. Anybody that takes less wont do it twice. Kind of like their own union enforcement.

I have an employee who makes $25 an hour all on the books, by the time I pay taxes, work comp etc he cost me right around $41 per hour. I try and do things right, legal, but how could I compete with a company who saves $16 an hour on labor by hiring off the books and paying cash? These guys hiring off the books labor for cash are gaming the system and there doesnt seem to be any real consequences for it.

Yea, the unlevel playing field. Bunch of that kind of stuff here too.

Hmmm. I wonder how many coons they could skin and flesh in an hour.

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That seems awfully high. Our employees cost us 11.5% more than their hourly wage. That $25hr employee would cost us $27.88.

Makes me want to put on a sombrero and go stand in line

dang right I would be good with that cash money no taxes. Only 8 hours work. Sounds like the american dream.

Ya ever check their papers, my boss got a couple once and they were illegals and stole right out from under him in the two day's he had them work !

Sounds more like vacation compared to the job I worked for 40 years.$25 cash with no taxes witheld is like $32 an hour.Where do I sign up for this?

Never seen one here.

I was talking to a business owner who does everything from lawnscaping to large construction. He said more than half his workers are Mexicans(legal workers)and they work harder and more hours than almost any of his other guys. He also said they'll work weekends and long hours without complaint.

Yesterday while picking up some supplies I had an older dark skinned us citizen say he would work for 5/hr.
He was in the minority on the lot.

$25 cash, ie: no taxes to help pay for all the free stuff they get, and most of the money goes back to Mexico.

They each likely cash a few welfare cheques every week too under several different names\ID's.
The people hiring these scammers are worse than the scammers.

Wonder why I.C.E. doesn't show up 2-3 times a week????????????

Could it be nobody really wants to stop illegals?

Jeez Pike River - 11.5 %. My workmans compensation is more than that! Matching social security is 7.65%. Liabiity insurance per worker. Unemployment compensation . Federal unemployment. Paid vacations and vacation pay is 5 percent or more depending on years of service. Partial healthcare payments if provided. Book keeping costs to keep track of all employee expenses and paperwork involved. Plus a bunch of small misc. expenses. 50% is about a break even number. And you don't run a business on break even.

Contractors who I know who hire these guys would gladly hire a more permanent type of worker, but there are none around here; especially white guys, if you do find one they are lazy, whiny, and don't have any skills.

^^^^^^^^^^^
Stereotyping-BS.
Lots of hardworking Whitemen among others-Lazy ones of all colours as well.

The problem is that the work that the illegal aliens do, does need done. Lots of jobs go unfilled in the US. We need a better guest worker program. It's easier for the government to maintain the status quo and do nothing.

Keith

Boco,
Don't quite understand what you mean by stereotyping??

Some of you guys assume these are illegals; most of them aren't, they are just guys who know how to work and want to.

You said white guys are lazy and have no skills-that's stereotyping.
Just like some people say Mexicans are lazy and have no skills.
Although Mexicans did invent the siesta,I'm sure some are good people.

I'd buckle down and do it for five years if I could get all kinds of taxpayer assistance... And also knowing after my five years are up I could go home and live comfortably for the rest of my life.

Meanwhile I'll be working until I'm in my 70's to pick up the tab for Paco who's working on living the Mexican dream.

Mike

Jobs go unfilled because the compensation is not high enough to entice a citizen to work. Everyone has differing abilities in jobs they can perform well, by allowing illegals or non citizens to take low skilled labor jobs it drives down wages in those fields making citizens who have low capability's trapped in weather they have to work low wage non "living wage" jobs or depend on welfare.

Think of Dairy farms, the only reason the small dairy farms went under was because of the oversupply of cheap immigrant labor allowing mega farms to out compete small owner operators. Those mega farms "needed" the labor or those jobs would of went unfilled, but do you really think there would of been a dairy shortage? I dont, I think alot more families would still be on the farms.

KiethC I believe your assessment is spot on. like I said government does not want to stop illegal immigration. I say end welfare. most deadbeats will get fired a few times while learning how to work but hunger is a great motivator

This has absolutely no basis in fact, in any way, shape or form. You obviously have no understanding of the dairy industry at all.

BS. 50% of workers on farms are illegals, the large farms would not have grown at the pace they did without illegal and immigrant labor, this in turn would not have crashed the price of milk and allowed the smaller family farms to continue to operate.

The large farms that hired illegals cost their neighbors their farms by devaluing the price of milk. Any farm or business that knowingly hires illegals should be seized and auctioned off.

I have to disagree with both Donner and Coon -- the price regulation of the government caused the smaller dairies to go out. The illegal and legal labor has and always will be an issue -- have you tried to hire anyone for a farm job recently? Noone wants to work the hours required for a dairy to operate (and i don't blame them). Acouple of the dairies that I work for (smaller 5-700 cow) can't get someone to show up with regularity ( they are paying milkers 18$ per hour) but not much for benefits other than housing and beef (cull cow) . However i work for some other farmers that are involved with the guest worker program -- they pay about the same but the workers go home every winter -- they run those guys 14-16 hour a day 7 days a week. why do you suppose they can't get anyone to work for them? . I do agree that any company or farm that hires illegals should be put oput of business -- but i think you need to look at the construction and landscaping trade long before the farms.

Not all ...not generalizing, but in our Family which included about 8 farm families...when the Kids grew up and took over the family farms they wanted to Buy and Build Everything New.
Pasturing wasn't good enough, a 24/7 indoor cow barn was built, 2 -85' harvestors , also a New monster Case with duly's on front and back . The adult kids Overspent ...Then the 80's hit. All the farms are no more.

Carefully reading your post makes me think you are proving my point while saying you disagree with me.

My entire area is farms. I have never seen a single non white drive a planter, a sprayer, a combine or drive a semi load of corn or beans anywhere. The berries in my area are all picked by whites, mostly teenagers. All the nearby dairies, hog farms and beef farms are small family run operations worked by white people. The hay is put up by white people too. The white who farm in my area have mostly been here for generations. I have a very hard time believing 50% of farm work is done by non whites, much less illegal aliens.

I do know of one guy, Tony, about half an hour from here, who employs Hispanics. They are well paid. The head ones make 6 figures. The lowest paid make 30 some thousand a year, with cheap board.

Keith

That seems impossible. .

Lots of agencies with thier hands out if you have employees . All government mandated

Donners numbers are more realistic .........and thats a break even number

The U.S department of labor states 53% of farm workers are illegals, feel free to Google it. Your area may be an exception. Sounds like a nice area but it does not represent the entire country.

Donner -- the disagreement comes with the 50%, and it is not just the large ones that are doing it. Most ( not all ) ;of the farmers that i work for do not (knowingly) hire illegals. however one of the companies that i used to work for did. They were much worse than the farmers about it.

All of you are somewhat correct in my opinion as to why the dairy industry has changed drastically in the last 25 years in the Mid West and East. The West Coast has utilized large centralized dairy farms since the 1970s. Undocumented labor has milked cows in the USA for two generations in most of the west.
What has caused the rapid centralization of the dairy industry in the Mid West and East is a combination of things.
The west expanded rapidly in the 1980s and 90s due to very low feed and forage costs so they could buy feed instead of getting land and expensive high maintenance machinery.
In the Midwest, WI, MI, WI and the east
Farmers owned or rented the land and machinery but milked fewer cows
What has made large farms more profitable?
1. Spreading the cost of all assets and labor over more milk and income
2. Farm families need to feed a family, buy health insurance, save money for colleges etc. Large dairies can pay good wages, but do not need to provide many or any of the other benefits a family needs. This makes operating a smaller dairy and raising a family almost impossible, even with very low debt.
3. Larger farms can utilize large amounts of lower cost by-product feeds that are not practical and affordable in small volume to smaller farms.
4. Many call the illegal workers, lower cost workers but when salary is looked at for hours worked, odd schedule hours and weekends they are not cheap labor. Where they shine is many are younger and they are very productive workers.
5. As stated above several government programs have made increasing size and production an advantage. Almost all commodities are paid out per bushel, ton, acre or whatever measurement and not by person or persons. Some commodities such as milk have upper limits but with subsidies on crops and large dairies buy a lot of feed this is a huge advantage.
6. The new margin protection program which pays out when feed margins are below a certain point is the new dairy subsidy type program. Large dairies buy a much higher percentage of their feed than small dairies and thus the new program significantly gives advantage to larger farms, as most smaller farms raise a much higher percentage of their feed. Some dairy economists even state that if this does not change soon that the new subsidy program will cause the demise of smaller dairies faster than almost anything else.
Sure a readily available labor force has not caused large dairies labor concerns as they could have but then look at all other perishable crops, meat processing, egg production farms, mink farms, construction, roofing firms and hospitality. The dairy industry loses many workers each year to those industries as undocumented workers learn more English, find easier work and more regular hours and schedules.

Bryce

Regardless what the percentages are, it doesn't really matter, there are a lot of jobs in many parts of the Country that white folks won't do.
We need immigrant labor if we want to eat food produced in the USA.
We need a less cumbersome guest worker program, but politicians on both sides of the aisle don't really what to fix the problem. Its too easy for politicians to get the knee-jerk reaction they desire from their constituents with the broken system we have.

I didnt really know much about this, good post. We have poultry, all my friends have been chased out of Dairy, lonely feeling to be 29 and have all your peers out of business and moved to town.

Western KS dairy's and feedlots are closer to 100% illegals. They don't get paid 18 bucks an hour either. Except for the white kids inheriting those dairy's and feedlots most move away.

Who killed the girl in Iowa last summer they finally found in the corn field........illegal farm worker

Who collects all the eggs at Rose Acre farms a half mile from Whiteman AFB - illegals

Who cuts up the chickens and catches all the birds for Tyson near Sedalia, MO - illegals


I would definitely guess around 50% of the farm labor jobs are carried out by illegals.....it does make me wonder why ICE does not do their job a bit more. It was what just a few weeks ago down in MS I think where they went in arrested like 300 illegals and then let like 200 go wasn't it.

Insightful post Bryce.

Hey Newt, drive on up to Tubari, Ltd. in Passaic, NJ lots of day workers across the street at the Depot.

I saw this post yesterday and was wondering where it was headed.

Just from my experience........ Flashback 30 years, most of the roofing crews were Anglos here in the mid-west. I had my roof replaced in the summer of 2000 and the crew was entirely Hispanic. The owner of the company, who was a friend of mine, said he can't find guys to work for him. The Hispanics were the only one that would roof and going rate was $10-12.50 an hour that they set. He trained and showed them how to properly shingle a roof.... Certainly not rocket science, but done correctly is brutal, backbreaking work. They NEVER missed a day and worked fast.

Later that year, the wife and I took a trip to California where everywhere we looked, we saw Hispanics working landscaping, building and roofing homes. Every lawn service's crew was entirely made up of Hispanic workers. Just out of curiosity we stopped at a model home that was was listed at three times a mid-west house would cost. When I asked about "Why all the Hispanic workers", the sales agent looked at me like I was crazy. "Do you know how much this house would cost if we hired Union people? This is the was California rolls", was his response.

Now, when everybody started complaining about Hispanics taking jobs back in 2000, I doubt if ANYONE would want a roofing job for $15.00 an hour, let alone $10-12.50! The jobs these people took were jobs that basically went "begging" with us "citizens". The jobs that Hispanics took are jobs that none of us would have worked.

When people complain about unions, WalMart, illegals, and the myriad of other current rants, remember that unions set a wage and working conditions, WalMart gave us cheap priced goods, but killed MADE IN AMERICA, and illegals... Well, they make us keep building and roofing homes, keeping our lawns manicured and yes, eating cheap chicken.

As Pogo said in the '50's... "We have met the enemy, and he is us!"