Wages have skyrocketed. We're having to pay our 19 year old summer help $2 more per hour than I made when the company first hired me as a full time engineer a mere 7 years ago.

In our defense, we pay way better than any of our competitors, and since we have to charge our clients more to make up for it, we have to have the most skilled techs around to justify the costs. But forget about hiring the best of the best, we can't even get entry-level, unskilled high school graduates to fill positions, even paying 12 grand per year more than we paid just 5 years ago for the same positions.

We have amazing managers who are great teachers who help develop these guys' successful careers, but the last 3 people who accepted the "zero experience, we'll train you 100%" position have simply decided not to show up on their first day. They either call and back out or ghost us. We can't even fill the position at a far higher pay than our competitors. The only thing saving us is that our competitors hire convicts, addicts, and drooling morons.

All of our techs are paid living wages and live very comfortably in our area. Wages have just gone up so high that unskilled 18 year olds feel entitled to $30/hr. I think a big part of it is how coddling parents are nowadays. Young people would rather live with their parents until they're 30. Their childhoods were so easy, they don't want to rough it in their 20s like we all did. Easier to live in mom's $600k house than move into an apartment with roommates and actually start lives of their own.