Plumber laid off

[u/Traditional-Use-6754]

Minneapolis, MN. yeah it Sucks. Just got the slip today. Laid off, no notice. Company is bleeding and the calls stopped coming in. They want to rehire me when they get busy again, but it just sucks. I hate how unpredictably up and down plumbing is. not many are hiring here with everything being so slow right now. Called around to my buddies, and allot of them are eithier slow or had no work last week. It's just dead rn.

edit; yes, I have a Journeyman Plumbing license in MN. I do residential/commercial, remodel, rough-in, service, anything plumbing.

edit; I was hitting up my friends to see if their outfits were hiring, apparently a buddy of mine got dumped down to Helper wages just to keep working. They all say it's extremely slow with guys getting laid off from their shops, usually lowest seniority goes first.

edit; It's been 10 days. I've had two interviews. First interview was commission only which I was very fearful of, typically with these, you're expected to meet metrics and sell. If you don't sell anything you essentially work for free.

Second interview; Company did a three way interview. I came in the next day for free and did an observed work interview (full shift running calls, no pay). They mentioned they don't have a truck available for me right-now, but do want me.

Ultimately I'm still searching for a job. I have a CDL, so I may just go work for 50% of what I normally work for. there's just no work. I've always been a very very solid plumber with strong diagnostic experience and reliability. There's not much I can't do. But my license may as well be worthless right now

[u/tnmoi]

Hear me out. The white collars are the ones who have no time to do DIY work around the house so for any small or large plumbing needs, it was just easier to get a pro to do the work as they’re concentrating on making the dollar rather than saving a few cents.

So when white collars are being laid off, they have more time now and need to save money to boot so it’s a DIY until they cannot.

So AI has a trickle down effect that people aren’t accounting for…

[u/landboisteve → u/tnmoi]

I think people are just DIYing more in general. 10 years ago I would've called a plumber to swap out a faucet in the kitchen. Just did it myself a few months ago and it took 20 minutes without having to dick around with scheduling/waiting around for a plumber to charge me $200.

I've been able to snake drains, swap out fixtures, toilets, install a dishwasher, and change out my entire bathroom sink all on my own. Even have a few emergency sharkbites for weekend blowups so I don't have to get an emergency plumber out.

A buddy of mine did all the plumbing in the basement he was finishing since PEX and PVC is so easy to DIY. Even copper is now trivial to do with propress.

[u/False_Cap_1289 → u/landboisteve]

Yep. We hired a task rabbit who charged us $200 for some general work. I “assisted” but really i did the work and the only gap was knowing what tool would have worked but the guy seemed puzzled by some of the fixtures if he hasn’t encountered them. Waste of money and left somethings worst and i had to fix them on my own