Around here there are few if any millennials doing labor, but there are people under 50 doing quality physical work. They are all Mexicans or what is termed "Other Than Mexican", by immigration officials. We contract with various services for our property maintenance and construction, in every case the crews show up are predominately of Latin-American descent. These contractors aren't hiring illegal aliens, rather they are using long term employees that are legally in the country. This is true across the skilled trades: plumbers, roofers, heating and air conditioning, concrete, painters, carpentry, windows, appliance repair, tree removal, planting and landscaping, and extends into automobile repair, body and paint, and upholstery. We have had great results from Diamond Certified contractors, and been impressed with the industriousness of their crews.
When I was working as a supervisor, my best summer help employees were similarly Latinos, while the white college students were, well - largely just bodies good for working the garbage and restroom details, and standing in the gatehouse selling tickets - if they could be taught to make change. Sad, really.
Even the Honor Camp inmate crews were more helpful and hard working than some of the permanent staff. Then they were enjoying work to offset the boredom of being in jail. Some even learned skills that lead to paying jobs on the outside after release. One young Latino I taught to assemble PVC pipelines really enjoyed it, he did a great job. He told me it was the first useful thing he did in his life. He returned a year later to reveal that he landed a job at a major landscape contractor, and subsequently was promoted to a foreman.
So there are people under 50 willing to work, and not just Latinos. We did find many hard working white and black kids that went on to be promoted and make a career, but like everything else, the pyramid is widest at the bottom.
