It’s that time of year when landscaping companies start hiring in droves, and offering ridiculously low wages. Indeed is currently filled with 13-15$ an hour landscaping positions and it is disgusting considering how much money is made off their labor. No benefits, nothing. These are jobs where you are constantly in the elements performing back breaking work, dealing with difficult customers over the pettiest of issues. “Why’d you trim my bushes into squares! I wanted them circular and you should have somehow known this without being told” or “I don’t like the way way the riding mower stripes, can you push mow my .75 acre lot from now on?” Etc, etc
For context: I’m self employed in the industry and know the profit margins. For example, most of my residential contracts are around 500$ a month and require an hour or so of labor per week (sometimes more, sometimes less). It’s common to knock out 10 or more of these a day. Some of my commercial contracts are around 3000$ a month and tend to be considerably more profitable. Do the math. Overhead is fairly minimal with most of it being equipment maintenance, insurance, and fuel.
I plan on keeping this up until I run out of companies to interview for.