Overheard a shop owner say he won't hire anyone under 30 anymore

Was at the NAPA parts counter in Phoenix last week and this older guy behind me was telling the clerk he only hires guys with at least 10 years in the trade now because the younger guys he tried kept walking off jobs or using wrong primer on plastic repairs. Got me thinking if my own shop should toughen up hiring standards or if that's just getting old and stubborn. Anyone else seeing this shift in the labor pool?

2 comments

2 Comments

uma_johnson1mo ago

Did you try a different way of training them instead of changing who you hire? I had the same problem at my auto body shop until I started pairing every new guy under 25 with one of my older techs for the first three months. It cut down the walk-offs way more than I expected because they had someone to ask dumb questions without feeling stupid. The primer issue is real too but a quick checklist taped to the spray booth fixed that for us.

bennett.noah1mo ago

Good pay and respect fixes most walk-off problems way faster than age limits do.