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I’m with Just A. Surveyor on this, the lower the numbers of licensed surveyors the better the money will be. After Florida changed the law around 1990, to require a degree, the following subsequent 10 year grandfather window saw a huge number of desperate minimally qualified 35-60 year old party chiefs scramble to get their names in the testing pot. Many of these guys required multiple testing opportunities to pass and obtain licensure, but once they had their ticket punched they were in the game. Without the certainty of seeing the curtain go down, it’s likely a number of them would never have gotten off the pot (so to speak), but knowing the clock was running out on a life long dream may have had the effect of forcing them to focus and bear down. I’m not trying to demean anyone who got licensed in this way, their license is as good as anyone’s, I just wish they would have valued their license a little more.
Following this onslaught of new licensees, prices for survey work products began to noticeably tumble. At a time when the majority of established survey businesses were charging $85-$95 per hour, a friend in an adjoining county told me about a newly licensed competitor who had an ad in the local shopper offering to do surveys for $35 an hour. A few weeks later this friend told me how he had just lost his standing contract to do survey work for the County School Board. The new surveyor was awarded the next years survey work at $35 per hour, thus saving the county $50 per hour compared to the $85 per hour my friend had been getting. According to my friend, the newly licensed surveyor had until recently been working for $12 an hour as a party chief, so the $35 an hour he and his partner wife could make likely seemed like big money to them.
In the areas I work, to this day I still lose out any work where this guy has also been contacted, and if not to this guy it’s jobs lost to another fellow who got licensed in the tsunami of newly licensed former party chiefs. A typical lot survey for these guys goes for $325 to $425.
In Florida today, most any licensed surveyor under the age of 50 was qualified by having a college degree. Whether this means we will necessarily see better survey work products is debatable, but I would surely expect to see a class of people who will demand remuneration at rates greater than wages. Regardless, there is no doubt that fewer surveyors will mean increased income for those still working.
From the Florida Board’s Spring 2018 Newsletter:
2,597 total PSMs
112 are female
140 are 40 or younger
1,195 are 60 or older (46%)
51 new licenses issued since May 10, 2017 to Spring 2018
From the Florida Board’s Winter 2019 Newsletter:
2,627 total PSMs
112 are female
187 are 40 or younger
1,273 are 60 or older (48%)
56 new licenses issued since February 1, 2018 to Winter 2019
The truth is true regardless of what you believe.
The first question folks are asking here is ‘when’. Prices are finally going the direction they should.
If you downloaded Dan’s book; be sure to read the part where he says, “If your clients aren’t complaining, you’re not charging enough.”
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I hope everyone has a great day; I know I will!- Posted by: @jkinak
I wouldn??t hire anyone willing to work for minimum wage.
a few things:
- Minimum wage in Portland/Vancouver is $12/hr and on it’s way to $15/hr.
- Entry level wages are not living wages.
- I would not expect to pay a person with any kind of surveying experience at all an entry level wage.
- If I were to hire someone at minimum it would be on the understanding that it was for a definite (but brief) probationary period only, at the end of which there would be a significant raise or a severing of ties, no in between.
- I probably couldn’t find anybody to work for that, even briefly, around here so I’d probably have to sweeten the pot. But I’m not in semi-rural Georgia.
@norman-oklahoma
Is it even worth it to lowball someone for the probationary period? If the person is absolutely terrible I doubt you’re going to ride out the full 3 months, or however long, with them. And if you do see them through to the end and pass, what are you out? Less than $1000? And for what? To send the message to all the people who looked at your listing that you’re not even willing to pay a living wage for 3 measely months? It seems like a great way to make a terrible impression to me.
We agree that we want our help to be both capable and well paid. Throwing money at them will make them one of those things. For a while.
You are right that it probably won’t take 3 months to figure out whether a guy is going to work out or not. 3 days maybe. And I might very well honor that at the end of the first week. The alternative of starting off at a higher wage, and then not being able to give them raises as they learn things and increase their usefulness sends the wrong message, IMO.
FWIW, the “living wage” argument gets nowhere with me. We are talking about an entry level person who doesn’t have a job, maybe never had a job, and whose next best opportunity is Walmart, or Subway. This does not apply to a person with any kind of survey experience or education.
Lots of “professionals” have to start out as interns, which is a whole lot worse than minimum wage.
I could understand a probationary period as Norman Oklahoma mentioned because a green field guy is pretty useless for a few weeks anyway. And if they up and leave in a month, they were just a waste of your time and money.
That being said, I wouldn’t have lasted one humid summer day cutting line for minimum wage 😆Many people at entry level are 18 yrs old and still living with the ‘rents. If somebody is at the stage of trying to raise a family while at entry level in any kind of job they have their life all out of order, and I might not want them if I was paid to take them. I’m not in business to solve the world’s problems.
Dropping out when the next recession hits is a huge blunder simply because finding a willing buyer for your business while in a recession is near impossible.
Sell when times are good and you are able to command high prices.
The medical paraprofessional model requires the paraprofessional to work under a doctor or dentists license.
That model applied to land surveying would require survey technicians to be licensed to work under a land surveyor’s license.
While I think this would be a better model for the profession, especially seeing some of the minimally educated and supervised field crews running around my area, unless legislated by the State it’s never going to happen.
I agree with @frozennorth
The perceived shortage of licensed surveyors has more to do with “they can’t get the surveying done at the price they desire.” then it does with the number of licensed surveyors.
PLS NJ & NY, PP NJThis happened in New Jersey a few years back. An Assemblyman complained he couldn’t get a survey done of his property and wanted to loosen the licensing requirements. Fortunately it was blocked when it was shown that the reality was that he couldn’t get a survey of his property for the price he wanted in the time frame he wanted.
PLS NJ & NY, PP NJThere is a balancing act to be sure. At what point do we go from too many surveyors, to not having enough? Northwest Tennessee has finally gotten rid of the jacklegs through retirement and death. The market is good right now and everyone has a backlog. However, I am concerned that a couple more retirements could make a shortage in the area.
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