At first it was the shortage in plywood that was killing us the world during much of 2020.
Before I started working for a building supply company, I was just another residential electrician doing wiring installation work on new homes being built in my city’s greater metropolitan area. After there was a housing shortage during the pandemic, a lot of developers started building in earnest. While I had decent job security at the time, I knew I could make a lot more money in the same industry working in sales instead of manual labor. As soon as I could, I started looking for entry level positions in the sales world. I focused on the construction industry, but I was realistically ready to take any number of different sales jobs as long as it netted me enough money to warrant the shift in my place of employment. That’s when I was incredibly lucky and found a sales job at a building supply company. They were also willing to teach me everything I needed to know, so I just had to accept the offer to get the ball rolling. Things were perfect until COVID hit, and then all hell broke loose. At first it was the shortage in plywood that was killing us the world during much of 2020. By 2021, the building supply shortages had gotten extensive enough to include both concrete and steel rebar and rebar tie wire. Until recently, we went a year and a half without any stainless steel rebar and anyone looking for corrosion resistant rebar had to settle for galvanized rebar rods and rebar tie wire. I’m hoping that the supply on rebar will improve in the next year because we’re losing money every single day like this.