[null000]

> generally well-paid [1]

Three seconds on google suggests that they make <40k in my area, typically. That's definitely not well paid, especially for a job that's fickle and physically demanding. Hell, that's barely above minimum wage (I'm in a $15/hr area, minimum wage is $32k) - I can get an office job tomorrow paying close to the same with basically no effort.

As usual, whenever someone blames labor for labor shortages, just look at the wages. If you pay less than a waiter earns with tips while demanding more out of your workers, don't expect people to be lining up at the door. Same goes for farm labor. Same goes for teachers. Same goes for truckers. And so on.

[1] - taken from the Non-WSJ alternative in the comments below

[CydeWeys]

Good point about the employment being fickle. Construction workers get screwed in pretty much every recession, the previous one being particularly bad. The only negative that happened to me in 2008 was we didn't get an annual bonus. The average construction worker saw much reduced hours over a period spanning years, or lost their job entirely. There was a huge outflow from the construction sector during that recession, disproportionately large compared to almost every other employment sector.