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    Chip Shortage Makes Big Dent in Automakers’ U.S. Sales

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    General Motors, Toyota, Honda, Stellantis and Nissan reported recent declines as problems in the global supply chain held down output and inventories.Four of the biggest sellers of cars and trucks in the United States said Friday that their sales had plunged recently, reflecting the intense squeeze that a global semiconductor shortage has put on auto production.General Motors, Honda, Nissan and Stellantis reported significant declines in sales in the three months that ended in September — in G.M.’s case, a drop of one-third from a year earlier — as chip shortages forced them to idle plants, leaving dealers with few vehicles to offer customers.Toyota had a slight increase for the quarter, but its sales in September fell sharply after it was forced to slash global production because of the chip shortage and other disruptions to its parts supplies stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.“We are in uncharted waters,” said Alan Haig, president of Haig Partners, an automotive consultant. “We’ve never seen a vehicle shortage like this. There are just not enough cars to sell.”The shortage of semiconductors stems from the beginning of the pandemic, when automakers around the world closed factories for weeks and suddenly cut their orders for computer chips. At the same time, manufacturers of laptops, game consoles and other electronics were demanding more chips as sales of their products took off among homebound consumers.When automakers resumed production, chip makers had much less production capacity to allocate for automotive chips.Strong auto sales, spurred in part by government stimulus checks, helped prop up consumer spending during the first year of the pandemic. But now production delays and depleted inventories are hurting sales when waning government support and the rise of the Delta variant of the coronavirus are acting as a drag on consumer spending.The forecasting firm IHS Markit on Friday lowered its estimate of third-quarter consumer spending growth to an annual rate of just 0.4 percent, down from 12 percent in the second quarter, contributing to a sharp slowdown in overall economic growth.Automakers have tried to use the electronic components they have in stock for their most profitable vehicles, such as pickup trucks and large sport utility vehicles. But in recent months those models have been affected, too.With fewer vehicles rolling off assembly lines, dealers’ inventories have become skimpy. On Friday, Kenosha Toyota in Wisconsin had a single new vehicle for sale — a two-wheel-drive Tacoma pickup. Suburban Chevrolet of Ann Arbor in Michigan was displaying just 11 new models for sale on its website.Despite the shortage, automakers and dealers alike are reaping hefty profits because tight inventories have forced consumers to pay higher prices. J.D. Power estimated that the average selling price of a new vehicle in September was $42,802, up more than $12,000 from the same month in 2020.“It’s a bonanza for the dealers and the factories, despite the shortage of inventory,” Mr. Haig said.With new cars scarce, prices of used cars have also shot up. And the latest sales figures raise concerns that the inventory shortage is worsening and crimping sales.“There are simply not enough vehicles available to meet consumer demand,” said Thomas King, president of J.D. Power’s data and analytics division.At General Motors, sales were down 33 percent in the quarter. The automaker sold 446,997 vehicles, compared with 665,192 light trucks and cars a year earlier. In the same quarter of 2019, G.M. sold 738,638.Honda’s sales were down 11 percent in the quarter, to 354,914 cars and trucks. But a decline in September of nearly 25 percent from the prior year showed the increasing squeeze on production. Stellantis, which was formed by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and France’s Peugeot, reported a 19 percent drop in third-quarter sales. At Nissan, the decline was 10 percent.Toyota said its sales in the quarter were about 1 percent higher than a year earlier, at 566,005. But its sales for September were down 22 percent.General Motors does not report monthly sales figures. Ford is expected to report its third-quarter sales on Monday.The shortage of semiconductors has forced manufacturers to idle plants for weeks at a time. G.M. idled several pickup truck plants for parts of August and September. Toyota cut global production by 40 percent in September, and expects a similar cut in October.General Motors emphasized that a lack of potential buyers was not the problem. “Underlying demand conditions remain strong, thanks to ample job openings, growing pent-up vehicle demand and excess savings accumulated by many households during the pandemic,” Elaine Buckberg, G.M.’s chief economist, said in a company statement.And the company signaled that the chip supply was improving. “We look forward to a more stable operating environment through the fall,” said Steve Carlisle, the president of G.M. North America.At the end of September, G.M. had 128,757 vehicles in dealer inventories, down from 211,974 at the end of June and more than 334,000 at the end of the first quarter. In years past, the figure was often about 800,000.Toyota had 37,516 vehicles on dealer lots at the end of the quarter, and 61,208 at ports serving the U.S. market. At the current sales rate, that is enough to last about 18 days.Ben Casselman More

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    Retailers’ Latest Headache: Shutdowns at Their Vietnamese Suppliers

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    Factories in the country, a major apparel and footwear supplier to the U.S., have been forced by the pandemic to close or operate at reduced capacity, complicating the all-important holiday season.After a bruising 18 months of the pandemic, this fall represented a fresh start for the apparel company Everlane. It was preparing to release a slew of new products, with September marking the beginning of an ambitious marketing campaign around its denim.Instead, Everlane has spent this month scrambling just to get jeans — along with other products like bags and shoes — out of Vietnam, where a surge in coronavirus cases has forced factories to either close or operate at severely reduced capacity with staff living in on-site bubbles.“At this point, we have factories in 100 percent lockdown,” Michael Preysman, Everlane’s chief executive, said in an interview. “Do we fly things over? Do we move things? Do we adjust in the factory? It’s a nonstop game of Tetris.”The crisis in Vietnam, which has grown in recent years to become the second-biggest supplier of apparel and footwear to the United States after China, is the latest curveball to be tossed at the retail industry, which has been battered by the pandemic. Vietnam made it through the first part of the pandemic relatively unscathed, but now the Delta variant of the coronavirus is on a rampage, highlighting the uneven distribution of vaccines globally and the perils that new outbreaks pose to the world’s economy.With the holiday season fast approaching, many American retailers are anticipating delays and shortages of goods, along with higher prices tied to labor and already skyrocketing shipping costs. Everlane said it was facing delays of four to eight weeks, depending on when factories it worked with in Vietnam had closed. Nike cut its sales forecast last week, citing the loss of 10 weeks of production in Vietnam since mid-July and reopenings set to start in phases in October.The apparel company Everlane said that 40 percent of its wares came from Vietnam.Justin Kaneps for The New York Times“We weren’t anticipating a full lockdown,” said Jana Gold, a senior director with Alvarez & Marsal’s consumer and retail group, who has been helping retailers with supply chain issues. “We’re going to continue to see a high demand for goods from highly vaccinated countries or regions, but who are getting the goods from highly unvaccinated countries that could be struggling.”The logjam has put a spotlight on Vietnam’s key role in outfitting American consumers. Many retailers moved their manufacturing to the country from China over the past decade because of rising costs. New tariffs on China instituted under former President Donald J. Trump accelerated the shift.Contract factories in Vietnam manufactured 51 percent of total Nike brand footwear last year. Lululemon and Gap, which also owns Old Navy, have said a third of their merchandise comes from factories in Vietnam. Everlane said the country supplies 40 percent of its wares.As the coronavirus tore across the globe, Vietnam was hailed as a bright spot for its rock-bottom caseload and strong economy. Over 15 months, only 3,000 infections and 15 deaths were reported in the country. But during the summer, the Delta variant erupted among a population that was almost entirely unvaccinated. Now, the caseload has surged past 766,000 and the death toll is nearing 19,000.The densely packed industrial hub of Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s virus epicenter, has experienced a series of increasingly stringent lockdowns, with many factories temporarily closing in July. That paralyzed commercial activity and added stress to a strained global supply chain. Although new cases have started to decline, the government extended the lockdown through the end of September, as it struggles to vaccinate its residents.People waiting to receive their vaccination in Hanoi, Vietnam, this month.Linh Pham/Getty ImagesAt the beginning of September, only 3.3 percent of the country’s population was fully vaccinated, while 15.4 percent had received one shot.The American apparel and footwear industry has asked the Vietnamese government to prioritize shots among factory workers. Executives from roughly 90 companies, including Nike and Fruit of the Loom, asked the Biden administration in a letter in mid-August to accelerate vaccine donations, saying that “​​the health of our industry is directly dependent on the health of Vietnam’s industry.” The group said the industry employed about three million U.S. workers.On a visit to Vietnam last month, Vice President Kamala Harris said the United States would send an additional one million vaccine doses, on top of the five million already donated, along with $23 million in emergency aid and 77 freezers to store the vaccine.“The situation in Vietnam is exactly why we need to be accelerating our efforts to provide donations of vaccines around the world,” said Steve Lamar, president of the American Apparel & Footwear Association, a trade group. Retailers have been setting up vaccination sites at factories to help administer shots once doses are obtained and are trying to keep manufacturing going through “three-in-one place” policy, where workers eat, sleep and work at factories, he said.According to the latest figures from the government, nearly everyone in Ho Chi Minh City has received the first shot.A garment factory in Hanoi in January, before the lockdown.Kham/ReutersJason Chen, chairman and founder of Singtex, a garment factory owner, said last week that the company’s 350-person factory in Binh Duong Province was down to 80 people, who were living on the premises to comply with government restrictions. The factory erected a tent to serve dinner to workers and has been shifting some retail orders to Singtex’s factories in Taiwan. Mr. Chen said he was prepared for the Vietnamese factories to remain closed until November.“This year in the U.S.A., everybody wants to go shopping,” Mr. Chen said. “Some goods cannot be delivered in the right time. So it really will affect the holiday.”He added that administrators at the factory were calling workers who were in lockdown to see if they needed financial and other assistance. But many are struggling.Le Quoc Khanh, 40, who assembles electronic home appliances at Saigon Hi-Tech Park, said the rigidity of the government lockdown had been “very hard” for him and his wife, who have three small children and rent their home in Ho Chi Minh City. His employer is not yet able to bring him back, even though he is vaccinated, and he said he had been forced to borrow money at high interest rates to pay for electricity, diapers and food.“On Sept. 15, when I heard that anyone who had two doses could go to work, my wife and I were so happy that we burst into tears, but now the government says to wait until the end of September,” he said. “My wife and I are so worried. It’s like we are sitting on fire — we really need money for living now.”The pandemic’s continuing impact on crucial supply chains may have a longer-lasting impact on future investment decisions in Vietnam and other emerging economies. Companies choosing where to invest abroad have always evaluated a broad slate of conditions, like taxes, regulatory requirements and labor force availability.“All of a sudden, they have to start thinking about the public health response,” said Chad P. Brown, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Huong Le Thu, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, added: “The Delta wave is just one of the variants. Vietnam, just like other countries, will have to prepare for the long game and potentially more outbreaks even after mass vaccination.”Hoping that restrictions will be eased in October, some factories in Ho Chi Minh City that have been closed since July are preparing to resume production.At the moment, though, American companies are looking outside Vietnam, often returning to Chinese factories that they worked with previously or finding partners in other countries that are not in the middle of a surge.Whether they will have enough time to shift before the holidays is questionable. “September is a bad time to reposition things,” said Gordon Hanson, an economist and urban policy professor at Harvard Kennedy School.Vietnam has been a regular topic on recent earnings calls for retailers, and concerns have probably ballooned as reopenings have been pushed. Adidas, based in Germany, said last month that delays that started with closings in mid-July were among issues that could cost the company more than 500 million euros in sales in the second half of the year.Restoration Hardware cited the shutdowns as a key factor in its decision to push the introduction of a new collection to next spring and to delay fall catalogs. Urban Outfitters said that while it would normally replenish best-selling products during the holiday season, its top concern now was simply getting products into the United States.The outbreak emerged just as the United States appeared to be regaining its economic footing and retailers were seeing a rebound in sales after a difficult 2020.Gihan Amarasiriwardena, right, with his Ministry of Supply co-founder Aman Advani, said the brand had paid about $1.50 per $125 shirt in transportation costs before the pandemic. Now, the cost is nearly $6.Tony Luong for The New York Times“In mid-June, the world looked like a pretty good place, at least in the U.S., and we anticipated this great recovery and here we are,” said Gihan Amarasiriwardena, president and co-founder of Ministry of Supply, a small apparel brand.Production delays aren’t the only problem. Ocean freight costs have soared during the pandemic, ports are crowded and demand for air shipping has jumped so significantly that Ms. Gold of Alvarez & Marsal said some retailers had chartered their own airplanes to transport goods.Since last year, the cost of shipping a container from East Asia to the West Coast of North America has leapt to $20,000 from $4,000, according to the transportation company FreightCo.Mr. Amarasiriwardena said Ministry of Supply had paid about $1.50 in transportation costs for a $125 shirt before the pandemic. Now, the cost is nearly $6 per shirt.Macy’s chief executive, Jeff Gennette, said, “This is the one keeping me up at night,” referring to supply chain issues at ports and in Vietnam. For the company, “it’s a bigger potential problem in the near term than where Covid is right now,” he said.Retailers are already trying to prepare customers. L.L. Bean just added a banner to its website warning customers about holiday shipping delays and shortages and urging early shopping. Stephen Smith, the company’s chief executive, said that the messaging was “unprecedented” for mid-September and that the company normally started talking about holiday orders and shipping cutoffs “deep into October or even November.”Mr. Preysman of Everlane said he anticipated that the supply chain would not rebound to its prepandemic health for several years.“You have to live in a new normal where the stability of 2019 doesn’t come back for three to five years,” he said. “This is going to take a long time to sort out.”Chau Doan More

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    China Power Outages Close Factories and Threaten Growth

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    High demand and soaring energy prices have forced some factories to shut down, adding further problems for already snarled global supply chains.DONGGUAN, China — Power cuts and even blackouts have slowed or closed factories across China in recent days, adding a new threat to the country’s slowing economy and potentially further snarling global supply chains ahead of the busy Christmas shopping season in the West.The outages have rippled across most of eastern China, where the bulk of the population lives and works. Some building managers have turned off elevators. Some municipal pumping stations have shut down, prompting one town to urge residents to store extra water for the next several months, though it later withdrew the advice.There are several reasons electricity is suddenly in short supply in much of China. More regions of the world are reopening after pandemic-induced lockdowns, greatly increasing demand for China’s electricity-hungry export factories.Export demand for aluminum, one of the most energy-intensive products, has been strong. Demand has also been robust for steel and cement, central to China’s vast construction programs.As electricity demand has risen, it has also pushed up the price of coal to generate that electricity. But Chinese regulators have not let utilities raise rates enough to cover the rising cost of coal. So the utilities have been slow to operate their power plants for more hours.In the city of Dongguan, a major manufacturing hub near Hong Kong, a shoe factory that employs 300 workers rented a generator last week for $10,000 a month to ensure that work could continue. Between the rental costs and the diesel fuel for powering it, electricity is now twice as expensive as when the factory was simply tapping the grid.“This year is the worst year since we opened the factory nearly 20 years ago,” said Jack Tang, the factory’s general manager. Economists predicted that production interruptions at Chinese factories would make it harder for many stores in the West to restock empty shelves and could contribute to inflation in the coming months.Three publicly traded Taiwanese electronics companies, including two suppliers to Apple and one to Tesla, issued statements on Sunday night warning that their factories were among those affected. Apple had no immediate comment, while Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.It is not clear how long the power crunch will last. Experts in China predicted that officials would compensate by steering electricity away from energy-intensive heavy industries like steel, cement and aluminum, and said that might fix the problem.State Grid, the government-run power distributor, said in a statement on Monday that it would guarantee supplies “and resolutely maintain the bottom line of people’s livelihoods, development and safety.”Still, nationwide power shortages have prompted economists to reduce their estimates for China’s growth this year. Nomura, a Japanese financial institution, cut its forecast for economic expansion in the last three months of this year to 3 percent, from 4.4 percent.A power generator at a shoe factory in Dongguan. The rental and fuel costs make electricity from the device twice as expensive as when the factory was simply tapping the grid.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesThe electricity shortage is starting to make supply chain problems worse. The sudden restart of the world economy has led to shortages of key components like computer chips and has helped provoke a mix-up in global shipping lines, putting in the wrong places too many containers and the ships that carry them.Power supplies are little different. Compared with last year, electricity demand is growing this year in China at nearly twice its usual annual pace. Swelling orders for the smartphones, appliances, exercise equipment and other manufactured goods that China’s factories churn out has driven the rise.China’s power problems are contributing in some part to higher prices elsewhere, like in Europe. Experts said a surge in prices in China had drawn energy distributors to send ships laden with liquefied natural gas to Chinese ports, leaving others to scurry for further sources.But the bulk of China’s power problems are unique to the country.Two-thirds of China’s electricity comes from burning coal, which Beijing is trying to curb to address climate change. Coal prices have surged along with demand. But because the government keeps electricity prices low, particularly in residential areas, use by homes and businesses has climbed regardless.Faced with losing more money with each additional ton of coal they burn, some power plants have closed for maintenance in recent weeks, saying this was needed for safety reasons. Many other power plants have been operating below full capacity, and have been leery of increasing generation when that would mean losing more money, said Lin Boqiang, dean of the China Institute for Energy Policy Studies at Xiamen University.A workshop producing shoe parts in Dongguan. Prices for the components have already increased 30 to 50 percent from last year.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesChina’s main economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, also ordered 20 large cities and provinces in late August to reduce energy consumption for the rest of the year. The regulators cited a need to make sure that the cities and provinces met full-year targets set by Beijing for their carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.Besides coal, hydroelectric dams supply much of the rest of China’s power, while wind turbines, solar panels and nuclear power plants play a growing role.China’s difficulty in keeping the lights on and the faucets running poses a challenge for Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader, and the Chinese Communist Party. They have taken a triumphalist stance this year, emphasizing China’s success in quickly eliminating outbreaks of the coronavirus and in winning the release of a senior Huawei executive, Meng Wanzhou, in a dispute with the United States and Canada.But Mr. Xi risks getting tagged for problems as well as successes. He has moved strongly to quell any opposition within the Communist Party and has extended its reach into more sectors of Chinese life. If people in China begin to point fingers, there are few others to blame.China’s economic rebound from the coronavirus has been driven in large part by heavy investment in infrastructure as well as the rise in exports. Overall industrial use consumes 70 percent of the electricity in China, led by the mostly state-owned producers of steel, cement and aluminum.“If those guys produce more, it has a huge impact on electricity demand,” Professor Lin said, adding that China’s economic minders would order those three industrial users to ease back.Disruptions from power shortages have already been felt in Dongguan, at the heart of China’s southern manufacturing belt. Its factories produce everything from electronics and toys to sweaters.The local power transmission authority in Houjie, a township in northwestern Dongguan, issued an order shutting off electricity to many factories from Wednesday through Sunday. On Monday morning, the suspension in industrial electricity service was extended at least through Tuesday night.Air-conditioners outside a worker dormitory in Dongguan. Factories in the city produce everything from electronics to toys to sweaters.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesThe throaty roar of huge diesel generators rumbled on Monday morning through the streets and alleys of Houjie, where scores of five-story, concrete-walled factories are nestled among low-rise apartment buildings for migrant workers. Air-conditioners were not running as temperatures climbed into the 90s, and only a few fluorescent lights gleamed in some of the factories’ windows.One of the noisy generators rumbled in a 20-foot yellow shipping container behind a factory where workers in bright blue and orange jumpsuits labored to assemble men’s and women’s leather shoes for American and European buyers.Mr. Tang, the general manager, said his factory had already faced especially strict power usage rules because the government labeled it a “low-profit, high-energy-consuming factory.”Along nearby alleys, a warren of small workshops was making insoles and other shoe components for assembly at Mr. Tang’s factory and other similar plants nearby. Prices for the components have already increased 30 to 50 percent from last year as labor costs and raw material prices rise, Mr. Tang said.“Many of us working in this line of business say that we are basically losing money this year,” he said at his factory on Monday morning, adding that power outages began this summer.Mr. Tang had to turn off his generator for two days last week after residents filed noise complaints with the local government. He also rented a metal cage to cover the generator to reduce the din.Some in the neighborhood, particularly shoe component manufacturers, were sympathetic, voicing a mixture of business pragmatism and nationalism.“Although it’s a bit noisy, I understand it,” said Wang Weidong, the owner of a shoe insole processing workshop. “There’s no other way — we will answer the call of the country.”Li You More

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    Biden's Infrastructure Plan: Scarcity of Skilled Workers Poses Challenge

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    One estimate says the bill would add $1.4 trillion to the U.S. economy over eight years, but without enough workers, efforts to strengthen roads and public transit could be set back.WASHINGTON — The infrastructure bill that President Biden hopes to get through Congress is supposed to create jobs and spur projects for companies like Anchor Construction, which specializes in repairing aging bridges and roadways in the nation’s capital.But with baby boomers aging out of the work force and not enough young people to replace them, John M. Irvine, a senior vice president at Anchor, worries there will not be enough workers to hire for all those new projects.“I’d be surprised if there’s any firm out there saying they’re ready for this,” said Mr. Irvine, whose company is hiring about a dozen skilled laborers, pipe layers and concrete finishers. If the bill passes Congress, he said, the company will most likely have to double the amount it is hiring.“We will have to staff up,” Mr. Irvine said. “And no, there are not enough skilled workers to fill these jobs.”Mr. Biden has hailed the $1 trillion infrastructure bill as a way to create millions of jobs, but as the country faces a dire shortage of skilled workers, researchers and economists say companies may find it difficult to fill all of those positions.The bill could generate new jobs in industries critical to keeping the nation’s public works systems running, such as construction, transportation and energy. S&P Global Ratings estimated that the bill would lift productivity and economic growth, adding $1.4 trillion to the U.S. economy over eight years. But if there is not enough labor to keep up with the demand, efforts to strengthen the nation’s highways, bridges and public transit could be set back.“Do we have the work force ready right now to take care of this? Absolutely not,” said Beverly Scott, the vice chair of the President’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}A recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey found that 88 percent of commercial construction contractors reported moderate-to-high levels of difficulty finding skilled workers, and more than a third had to turn down work because of labor deficiencies. The industry could face a shortage of at least two million workers through 2025, according to an estimate from Construction Industry Resources, a data firm in Kentucky.The pandemic has compounded labor shortages, as sectors like construction see a boom in home projects with more people teleworking and moving to the suburbs. Contractors have also faced a scarcity of supplies as prices soared for products like lumber and steel.Job openings in construction have picked up at a rapid clip after the sector lost more than one million jobs at the beginning of the pandemic. According to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis, construction job openings have increased by 12 percent from prepandemic levels. But the sector is still down about 232,000 jobs from February 2020, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.The issue underscores a perennial challenge for the skilled trades. Not enough young people are entering the sectors, a concern for companies as older workers retire from construction, carpentry and plumbing jobs. And although many skilled trade positions have competitive wages and lower educational barriers to entry, newer generations tend to see a four-year college degree as the default path to success.Infrastructure workers tend to be older than average, raising concerns about workers retiring and leaving behind difficult-to-fill positions. The median age of construction and building inspectors, for instance, is 53, compared with 42.5 for all workers nationwide. Only 10 percent of infrastructure workers are under 25, while 13 percent of all U.S. workers are in that age group, according to a Brookings Institution analysis.“The challenge is, how are we going to replace — not just grow, but replace — many of the workers who are retiring or leaving jobs?” said Joseph W. Kane, a fellow at the Brookings Institution. “​A lot of people, especially younger people, just aren’t even aware that these jobs exist.”Community colleges, which offer a variety of vocational training programs, have suffered steep declines in enrollment. A recent estimate from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center found that community colleges were the hardest hit among all colleges, with enrollment declining by 9.5 percent this spring. More than 65 percent of the total undergraduate enrollment losses this spring occurred at community colleges, according to the report.John M. Irvine, a senior vice president at Anchor Construction, worries there will not be enough workers to hire for new projects.Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesNicholas Kadavy, a third-generation mason who owns Nebraska Masonry in Lincoln, Neb., has seen his workload triple since April. He said his company had already scheduled out work until June 2022.He wants to hire more skilled masons to finish the projects sooner, but he can’t find enough people to fill the dozen positions he has open, even though he is willing to pay up to $50 an hour — twice what he offered before the pandemic. He checks his email daily, waiting for more applications to come in.“My biggest struggle is finding guys that want to work,” Mr. Kadavy said.Even when he does hear from applicants, Mr. Kadavy said, he is unable to hire many of them because they are not qualified enough. He was already seeing a shortage of skilled masons before the pandemic, he said, and he worries that the craft is “dying” because newer generations are not pursuing the field.The nation’s public transit systems would receive $39 billion under the infrastructure bill, allowing agencies to expand service and upgrade decades-old infrastructure. But transit agencies are dealing with worker shortages of their own, facing a dearth of bus drivers, subway operators and maintenance technicians.Metro Transit in Minneapolis is trying to hire about 100 bus drivers by the end of the year, said Brian Funk, the agency’s acting chief operating officer. The agency had originally aimed to hire 70 workers by the end of June, but it met only about half of that goal.Although he is optimistic that the agency will be able to fill those remaining positions after ramping up efforts to promote the openings, he said he was still wary about some workers choosing to leave.“We know that every day that goes by, there’s the potential that somebody else is looking at either retirement or another job,” Mr. Funk said.Some are optimistic that policymakers will be able to scale up work force development programs to keep up with the demand the infrastructure bill would create. Projects could take several months to get started, economists said, giving the country time to train workers who are not yet qualified.“These problems are not insurmountable,” said Nicole Smith, the chief economist at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. “Not having a sufficiently trained work force is something that can be addressed.”But others are worried that the bill does not do enough to draw more people into infrastructure fields, especially historically underrepresented groups like women and people of color. Although Mr. Biden originally proposed a $100 billion investment in work force development, that funding was left out in the latest version of the bipartisan infrastructure bill. The funding would have invested in job training for formerly incarcerated people and created millions of registered apprenticeships, among other things.Last week, the National Skills Coalition and more than 500 other organizations sent a letter to congressional leadership calling on it to include the funding in a separate reconciliation bill.“President Biden promised that economic recovery was going to be predicated on equity,” said Andy Van Kleunen, the chief executive of the National Skills Coalition. “Work force training has to be part of that answer.” More

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    July 2021 Jobs Report: Employers Add 943,000 to Payrolls

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    The American economy roared into midsummer with a strong gain in hiring, but there are questions about its ability to maintain that momentum as the Delta variant of the coronavirus causes growing concern.Employers added 943,000 jobs in July, the Labor Department reported Friday, but the data was collected in the first half of the month, before variant-related cases exploded in many parts of the country.While the economy and job growth overall have been strong in recent months, experts fear that the variant’s spread could undermine those gains if new restrictions become necessary. Already, some events have been canceled, and many companies have pulled back from plans for employees to return to the office in September.Still, with schools planning to reopen, at least for now, and Americans continuing to dine out and travel, the economy’s expansion remained on track last month. Some experts foresee a slight cooling on the horizon, but most think unemployment will keep falling as the labor market recovers the ground lost in the pandemic.“It’s been a sprint in terms of growth, but we may be moving into more of a marathon,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West in San Francisco. “Travel season is winding down, and the Delta variant is a big concern.”The unemployment rate fell to 5.4 percent, compared with 5.9 percent in June. Before the report, the consensus of economists polled by Bloomberg forecast a gain of 858,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate dipping to 5.7 percent.The education arena, often a laggard in July as schools close and teachers go off the payroll, was a leader last month. Instead of letting teachers go as they have in the past, schools kept more workers on the payroll, creating a larger seasonal adjustment upward in the number of teaching jobs.Local government added 221,000 education jobs, after a jump in June, and 40,000 jobs were added in private education. Leisure and hospitality businesses, which were hit hard by lockdowns last year, recovered further, adding 380,000 jobs. That included 253,000 in food and drinking establishments, along with hiring gains in lodging and in arts, entertainment and recreation.Manufacturing and construction showed more modest increases, hampered by higher goods prices and a shortage of components like semiconductors. Employment in professional and business services jumped by 60,000, a sign that the white-collar sector is on the upswing.“Business is unbelievable,” said Tom Gimbel, chief executive of LaSalle Network, a recruiting and staffing firm in Chicago. “Companies are continuing to hire salespeople in numbers that I’ve never seen. It shows me that companies are very optimistic about the future.”“We’re seeing demand for senior people, but it’s not crazy,” he added. “The huge demand is entry to midlevel, with salaries ranging from $45,000 to $90,000. It’s the rebirth of the middle manager.”Despite the hiring gains, many managers report difficulty in finding applicants for open positions. Jeanine Lisa Klotzkin manages an outpatient addiction treatment center in White Plains, N.Y., and has had only limited success in her search for addiction counselors.“Normally, we’d have dozens of candidates,” she said. But six weeks after posting an online job ad, her clinic has received four applications. The positions pay $50,000 to $63,000 a year, said Ms. Klotzkin, who added: “These aren’t low-wage jobs. I don’t know where the people went.” More

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    Lack of Foreign Workers Has Seasonal Businesses Scrambling

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    SALT LAKE CITY — Tyler Holt summed up the problem his Utah landscaping business faces every year. “People who want to be in the job force want stability — if they want to work, they work full time,” he said. “Locally there’s just no workers who want to do anything seasonal.”The complaint has been echoed not only by landscapers in Utah, but also by amusement parks in Wyoming, restaurants in Rhode Island, crab trappers in Maryland, camps in Colorado and thousands of other businesses around the country that depend on seasonal workers from abroad to work lower-wage nonfarm jobs.The scramble for these temporary guest workers has been intense in recent years, as the jobless rate inched down and tensions over immigration policy ratcheted up. But this year, after the coronavirus pandemic first halted and then seriously constrained the stream of foreign workers into the United States, the competition has been particularly fierce.The Biden administration responded to frantic pleas from small businesses in the spring. It did not renew a pandemic-related suspension of the J-1 program, which provides short-term visas designed for foreign students who come to the United States to work and travel. Soon after, it raised the quota on temporary visas under the H-2B program for temporary nonagricultural workers, which are issued through a lottery.But travel restrictions, backlogs and delays at foreign consulates in approving applicants have still left businesses from Maine to California in the lurch.Mr. Holt, the chief executive of Golden Landscaping and Lawn in Orem, asked for 60 H-2B workers, hoping the team could be in place by April 1, when the season began. He struck out in the initial lottery, but was luckier the second time around, when the administration increased the quota by one-third.On July 9, Mr. Holt was overjoyed to hear that his application had been approved. But now, roughly halfway through his eight-month season, still no workers have arrived.“Nothing,” he said with disgust when asked two weeks later about an update.Mr. Holt said he had raised his normal $14-an-hour wage — by $2, then $3, then $4 and then $5 — to attract local workers. “I will give anybody a job that wants to work,” he said. The crews he has in place are working 60 to 70 hours a week to keep up with the demand.Landscapers like Mr. Holt employ more H-2B workers than any other industry — roughly half of the total approved. And their inability to get a work force in place by the start of the season has been costly.Ken Doyle, the president of All States Landscaping in Draper, Utah, said the late arrival of 27 temporary foreign workers had cost him 15 to 20 percent of his business, about $1 million.“We’re so far behind,” he said. “We’ve lost some very large accounts.”Mr. Doyle acknowledges that the work can leave blisters and an aching back. “It’s a hard job,” he said on a day when the temperature trudged past 100 degrees. “It’s hot outside. They’re digging holes for sprinklers or trees, laying sod and lifting heavy items.”Under the H-2B visa program that Mr. Doyle and Mr. Holt rely on, the number of seasonal foreign workers is ordinarily capped at 66,000 a year, split between the winter and summer season. Veteran workers, who returned year after year, used to be exempted from the total, but Congress halted that practice in 2017 as the immigration debate got heated. The next year, the government instituted a lottery system that injected a new layer of uncertainty on top of a frustrating process.“It’s quite the gamble if you’re going to be a viable business,” Mr. Doyle said.Kyan Chase, 15, works at Palace Playland in Old Orchard Beach. Of the labor shortage, he said: “It’s pretty good for me. I can get a job anywhere I want.”Tristan Spinski for The New York TimesPrograms for temporary guest workers have long come under attack from several corners. Labor groups and immigration critics argue that it robs American workers of jobs and depresses wages. And every year, there are disturbing examples in which foreign workers are exploited by employers, cheated out of pay or living in squalid conditions.Many employers counter that people don’t understand the peculiarities of the seasonal labor market and changed attitudes, particularly about manual work.“Fifteen, 20 years ago we were able to get local summer kids in high school or college,” Mr. Holt said. “Those workers are just not there anymore. It’s easier to do other things than hard labor for eight to nine hours a day.”Mr. Doyle spent nearly $30,000 advertising for workers as far away as Nevada and got no response, he said. For the last year, he has had a 20-foot trailer parked outside his office, emblazoned with a sign proclaiming: “NOW HIRING. WALK-INS WELCOME.”“I had two people drop in all year,” he said.Higher wages could encourage more American-born workers to apply to these jobs, said Muzaffar Chishti, director of the Migration Policy Institute at the New York University Law School. But he argues that in every labor market, there are difficult, unpleasant, low-paid jobs with no opportunity for advancement — like agricultural work or meatpacking — that are considered less desirable both for economic and for cultural reasons.Some of the attitudes toward jobs, particularly in the service sectors, are changing, he said, but “we haven’t quite understood yet the impact of pandemic.”Temporary guest workers have also gotten entangled in broader and more bitter arguments over immigration. There is a widespread misconception, Mr. Chishti said, that all foreign workers are eager to settle in the United States.“A lot of workers don’t necessarily want to come and live here forever,” he said. “They want to work legally and travel back and forth. Their life in Mexico, for example, may be better than life in a U.S. city.”In the meantime, employers are struggling. Small resort towns often depend on international seasonal workers because their population isn’t sufficient to fill all of the suddenly available slots at hotels, restaurants, ice cream shops or ski slopes that serve the hordes of tourists who appear and then vanish.“We just don’t have enough local workers to be able to support the economy as it needs to be in the summertime,” said Jen Hayes, who is the J-1 visa program liaison for Old Orchard Beach, a coastal town south of Portland, Maine.Workers on J-1 or H-2B visas generally make up about 10 to 14 percent of the seasonal work force in Maine.Tristan Spinski for The New York TimesHistorically, the town has had anywhere from 650 to 740 international student workers in the summer — from countries including Turkey, Romania and Russia — but Ms. Hayes estimated that there were only 125 to 150 as of late July. A meet-and-greet at the start of the summer that typically bustles with activity drew only a handful of people.The labor shortage has forced some businesses to limit their hours or close for an extra day a week.Exorbitant housing costs in vacation-friendly enclaves — whether in the Hamptons, in Ketchum, Idaho, or in Provincetown, Mass. — further shrink the pool of available workers, foreign or domestic.In Maine, where the economy relies heavily on tourism and out-of-state visitors, workers on J-1 or H-2B visas generally make up about 10 to 14 percent of the seasonal work force, said Greg Dugal, the director of government affairs at HospitalityMaine, a trade group.But this year, the state will be lucky to receive half the usual number, Mr. Dugal said, adding that many who were approved for the summer arrived later than usual because of processing delays.“The fact remains that we had a worker shortage prior to the pandemic,” he said, and “we have a worse worker shortage after the pandemic for the same reason and a lot of other reasons.”Patricia Cohen More

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    Will the Delta Variant Wreck the Recovery?

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    Probably not. But there are potential challenges with both supply and demand that put the economy at risk.Empty streets in downtown Boston last month. If the Delta variant plays havoc with companies’ return-to-work plans, such scenes could continue.Philip Keith for The New York TimesThe good economic news, when it comes to the ascendant Delta variant of the coronavirus, is that it puts the economy at risk in only two ways. The bad news: They are supply and demand.So far, the recovery remains robust by most available data. Real-time indicators of business activity show little evidence that Americans are pulling back their economic activity in any meaningful way.But while there is no reason to expect a repeat of the huge disruption of 2020, the new variant puts at risk the kind of rapid recovery that has been underway for months. Just as major parts of the economy were figuring out how to return to full functioning, this may amount to throwing sand in the gears.The emergence of the variant has already caused several wobbly days on Wall Street. And the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, is likely to face questions about the economic implications of Delta in a news conference Wednesday afternoon after a meeting of the Fed’s policy committee.At the White House, officials are monitoring the variant closely, but see no evidence that it is hurting the recovery — or that policymakers will need to inject another dose of short-term fiscal stimulus anytime soon.“Overall it looks like the risks are considerably diminished compared to the height of the crisis,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief U.S. financial economist at Oxford Economics. “But I do think you have to worry about the macroeconomic risks, and our experience over the last 18 months has shown that.”As economists and policymakers game out the nature of those risks, what stands out is not the chance of a major shutdown. Instead, the concerns are the constraints on the availability of workers and on the supply and demand for many services.On the supply side, there are already severe disruptions in many supply chains, especially those that rely on goods imported from Asia. These create ripple effects for the United States, such as a shortage of computer chips that is in turn hindering automobile production and contributing to high inflation.Many Asian nations — especially those behind the curve on vaccinating their populations — are putting in lockdowns to try to stop the spread of the Delta variant, which threatens to make those shortages and price spikes worse.“We had already expected that semiconductor shortages would continue into 2022, and that’s virtually assured now,” said Sara Johnson, the executive director of global economics for I.H.S. Markit. She noted that new restrictions were limiting production activity in countries including Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.A more domestically focused supply-side risk comes with the U.S. labor supply.Employers have been complaining about labor shortages, and if the renewed risk of illness makes even vaccinated adults reluctant to enter or re-enter the work force, those shortages could worsen.That is particularly true if schools were to return to remote learning — even for brief periods — making it all the harder for parents to work.“What happens if you have a flare-up?” Ms. Bostjancic said. “Do you shut school for a week? That’s very disruptive to parents who want to return to the labor force.”On the demand side, there is some comfort in the seemingly robust spending from American consumers, who are flush with accumulated savings from the pandemic, federal stimulus dollars and rising wages.The consumer confidence index rose slightly in July, the Conference Board said Tuesday, suggesting that the emergence of the variant has so far done no major damage to consumers’ willingness to spend.There is even a perverse twist that could reduce the variant’s impact on demand for things like restaurant meals and concert tickets. The rate of infection has remained relatively low in places with high vaccination rates. In the places where infections are skyrocketing, public sentiment tends to be overwhelmingly against anything resembling a lockdown.Still, as noted by two Bank of America economists, Stephen Juneau and Anna Zhou, Michigan saw a pullback in consumer spending on services during its surge of infections earlier this year, even absent formal restrictions on activity.“So far we have seen little evidence of the Delta variant significantly affecting economic activity or spending on services,” they wrote in a recent research note. “However, survey data point to increased hesitancy of being in physical locations and concerns over the virus.”That could prove particularly relevant in a few segments of the economy that have been slowest to recover from the pandemic recession.Many white-collar employers have been on the verge of bringing workers back to offices. If those plans change because of the variant, offices and downtown streets risk staying emptier for longer, implying less demand for office space and downtown restaurant meals.There is a similar story in the business travel sector, which has lagged leisure travel in returning to health. Will conferences and trade shows return with the kind of robust attendance many hotels, convention centers and event planners have been hoping for?One particularly tricky thing is that the solution to these potential economic ripples lies in the public health arena. If the recovery stalls, fiscal and monetary policy are unlikely to play much of a constructive role. Already, enough money is flowing through the economy to make overheating and inflation a top-of-mind concern.There may be a demand shortfall for very specific things, like sandwiches from a downtown restaurant or rooms in a convention center hotel. But it is hard to argue in the summer of 2021 that there is much risk of inadequate aggregate demand.White House officials say vaccinations over the past several months — and strong support from the federal government for people and businesses — have set the foundation for the economy to maintain momentum even as Delta spreads. And they believe consumers will react differently this time to the spreading virus.In past waves, people who worried about a higher risk of contracting Covid-19 could either assume that risk and keep up their normal economic activities, or pull back spending in places like retail stores and restaurants. Now, the officials say, spooked consumers have a third choice. They can get vaccinated and largely maintain their typical routines — or, if they’re already vaccinated, just keep spending the way they have been.All of that means that the policy response to the Delta variant, as for Covid all along, relies more heavily on getting the best possible public health outcomes, with conventional economic policy a secondary concern.Just when it seemed that the pandemic policy story was finally winding down, in other words, it is starting to repeat itself.Jim Tankersley contributed reporting. More

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    Utah Farm Draws a Rare Breed: The American Shepherd

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    DIXIE NATIONAL FOREST, Utah — “The object is to keep ’em grazing,” Scott Stubbs said as he looked over the 1,470 ewes and lambs chewing up Castle Valley’s dandelions, clover and grasses. “Get them full, which makes them fat.”Mr. Stubbs, a fifth-generation sheep farmer in southern Utah, did not expect to be giving a hands-on shepherding seminar this summer, but he was stuck. He needed a second experienced herder, and the one who was supposed to arrive in the spring from Peru did not get approval for a special agricultural visa. Now backlogs at some foreign passport offices and American consulates — compounded by the pandemic — were delaying a replacement.That’s why Mr. Stubbs last month ended up hiring Duane Rogers, a type of worker rarer than a blue lamb in these parts: an American-born beginner who was eager to herd sheep.Labor shortages are common this summer, especially in Utah, where the unemployment rate is 2.7 percent. The Marriott in Cedar City did not have enough maids to offer daily housekeeping, and the Denny’s outside of Beaver had a sign on the door asking customers to be patient with a short-handed staff. But the predicament that Mr. Stubbs and farmers like him are facing is of longer standing and more severe.“Nobody wants this type of work,” Mr. Stubbs said of herding and farm labor. And most American-born workers haven’t wanted it in a while — at least at the wages that most farmers say they can afford. That is why more than 200,000 temporary foreign farm workers, mostly from Mexico, were allowed into the United States last year to pick cherries, tomatoes and tobacco or to tend livestock. The number of visas issued has more than tripled since 2011, and it increased in 2020 despite the pandemic, after food and agricultural workers were characterized as part of the essential work force.Mr. Stubbs, 54, started using the agricultural visa program, known as H-2A, eight years ago. Through an agency, he hired a Peruvian, Ronal Leon Parejas, who is still with him.Before then, aside from family members or the occasional high school student who would pitch in for a few weeks, the only people in recent years willing to herd sheep were Native Americans or undocumented immigrants, Mr. Stubbs said. This year, the Navajo herder who had been working for him needed a knee operation. At 68, he probably wouldn’t be coming back.“You put a small flock out, but you can’t get labor,” said Mr. Stubbs, who raises his flock for both wool and meat. “It’s putting a hurt on.”Mr. Stubbs, who was 5 or 6 years old when his grandfather taught him how to move a flock from meadow to creek on the federal forest land where his family has had grazing rights since the 1800s, knows it is a hard and lonely job. His first month herding alone was after eighth grade. “I thought I would die,” he said, even though his mother drove from their farm nearly 20 miles away each day to check on him. “I lost 30 pounds in 30 days.”A herder has to stay with the sheep 24 hours a day through the roughly 10-month period on the open range, in sun and rain, hail and snow, whether temperatures climb toward 100 degrees or drop below zero. The workday begins at sunup and ends at sundown, although there may be nights when you need to help the guard dogs scare off a coyote or a mountain lion. There are no weekends or holidays off.The H-2A program has been criticized for low wages and lack of worker protections. For workers under the visa program, the pay is set by the government, and has increased in recent years. In Utah, it is $1,728 a month plus transportation, room and board. In this case, the room is a 14-by-8-foot sheep wagon that has a bed, a wood-fire stove, a gas grill and a cooler. Mr. Stubbs delivers requested food — eggs, bacon, sandwich meat, bread, potato chips, cookies, soda and cans of chile and corn — every few days, along with water.And that is the deal that Mr. Rogers accepted three weeks ago. “I’m grateful that Scott gave me a chance,” he said.Mr. Rogers prepared dinner in his trailer near the grazing area where he herds sheep.A herder has to stay with the sheep 24 hours a day through the nine-month grazing period.Marty Stubbs, who is training Mr. Rogers, roped a lamb that was showing signs of a possible injury.Mr. Rogers, left, assisted Mr. Stubbs with the injured lamb.Mr. Rogers pulled on his tan leather gloves. “I love being in the mountains, and I don’t mind being alone,” he said. His wife, whom he met a few years ago on Western Match, an online dating service for cowboys and “country folk,” lives in South Texas with his stepson and two step-granddaughters. He arrived in Utah with five dogs and his father’s old saddle.At 58, Mr. Rogers has tried his hand at various jobs. He grew up in Hayden, Colo., where his father owned a small farm and raised some cattle and sheep. He served in the military for 12 years and did a tour in Panama before joining the National Guard. In addition to herding cattle and working as a ranch hand, he has driven trucks, maintained highways, worked in construction, plowed snow and guarded women and children who had been arrested at the border and locked up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers — a job he said he hated because of the conditions.During a long rehabilitation after a truck wreck in 2017, Mr. Rogers said, he spent a lot of time thinking about what he wanted to do. He had looked after small flocks of sheep in enclosed areas, but the idea of working a large open-range herd had always exerted a magnetic pull. He was fascinated by the nomadic life, and had watched dozens of documentaries about it. And he was excited to train his dogs to herd sheep.He was unemployed when he saw the advertisement on the state’s job listing site and applied.“I like cattle, but sheep are a lot more entertaining,” and a lot smarter than people give them credit for, he said. “The lambs do some of the funniest things. In the morning, when they’re feeling good, they’ll climb up on the rocks and play king of the mountain.”The sheep were offering a symphony of guttural bleats punctuated with hollow tongs from bells dangling round their necks as Mr. Rogers and the dogs directed them toward a noonday water break. As the ewes and lambs shuffled forward, they kicked up swarms of grasshoppers that can strip a green field faster than any herd. It is one of several travails plaguing Western farmers this season, along with extreme heat and a prolonged drought that are shrinking harvests and killing off grazing land.The delay in hiring a second herder provided Mr. Stubbs with another challenge. Because he had no one to take the sheep to graze, he had to keep them on the farm, feeding them bales of hay he might otherwise have sold.Over the past few weeks, his son Marty has been helping train Mr. Rogers to herd, so he has not been around to help his father with farm work or tend to his own sheepshearing business. There are many days, Mr. Stubbs said, when he and his teenage daughter ended up working till midnight.One morning, Marty Stubbs caught sight of a small white lamb that wasn’t using his hind left leg. He rode after him, threw up a loop of rope and in a single swing lassoed his back legs. He jumped off a chestnut horse named Trigger and held down the lamb, pushing his left knee against the animal’s stomach. He examined the hind hoof, poking with a knife to loosen a stuck rock or thorn.Mr. Rogers took a brown bottle of penicillin and a large syringe out of his saddle bag.“How many CC’s you want?” he asked.“Six,” Marty replied.He closed his knife, took the needle and jabbed it into the lamb’s hindquarter and then marked the animal’s back with an orange line in chalk. He lifted his knee, and the lamb hobbled away.“If you know where they’re going, it’s OK,” Marty said of keeping track of the sheep. “The problem is if you don’t know where they are and you have to find them.”Knowing where the flock is likely to head, though, is something that only comes through experience. Mr. Parejas said it wasn’t until his fourth year that he felt truly comfortable.His herd was about 10 miles east of Mr. Rogers’s, and he was getting ready to move them across Highway 143, through thick clusters of pinyon pine and juniper, spruce and white quaking aspens, up Haycock Mountain. As the sheep fanned out across the road — they have the right of way — lines of cars and trucks backed up on either side of the double yellow line, their passengers alternately irritated and enchanted by the woolly procession.Sheep herded by Ronal Leon Parejas, a Peruvian herder, crossed Highway 143. Mr. Parejas, left, has not been able to return to Peru to visit his 4-year-old son since February 2020, before the pandemic hit.“It’s very hard and very lonely,” he said through a translator. “I miss my family.”Juan Arredondo for The New York TimesFor Mr. Rogers, left, the idea of working a large open-range herd has always exerted a magnetic pull. Mr. Parejas, 32, has not been able to return to his own small farm in Peru or his 4-year-old son since February 2020, before the pandemic hit. He hopes to visit in December, when the season ends, as long as it doesn’t interfere with his efforts to get a green card — a prize that would enable him to work and live in the United States without restrictions.“It’s very hard and very lonely,” he said through a translator. “I miss my family.” Still, it is better now than during his first couple of years, when he lacked a cellphone with WhatsApp and Facebook to keep in touch.He remembers his first night trying to sleep in the desert, when he heard a coyote howl. “I almost cried,” Mr. Parejas said.Now he is trying to help his nephew get an H-2A visa so he can also work for Mr. Stubbs. He said that he could probably earn as much if not more an hour in Peru, but that getting an employer back home to pay what he owes can be a trial. Working here delivers a dependable paycheck, he said.Mr. Rogers, too, appreciates the reliable paychecks and the fact that he has no expenses during the season and can bank his entire wage. He hopes to start paying down a large debt.Even so, he says that for him, the earnings are secondary. “Money isn’t everything, living is everything,” he said. “All you leave behind is your story, and this is a good story to tell my grandkids.” More