Larry Rogers said he “always figured that they would be taking me from my shop to the undertakers”, and that he would continue the auto repair shop work he had done for 37 years until he died.

But he couldn’t find workers to do the jobs that needed to be done.

“With what we do, put vehicles back to pre-crash conditions, we have to have people that can follow directions and come to work,” Rogers said. “Getting people to show up was a problem, more for younger applicants.”

“It wasn’t something we planned on doing, it was the turn of events,” he said.

“There should be five workers in the building, it ended up just Ryan and I,” he said.

“We had hired and trained workers, but not for over one year.”

His son, Ryan, has worked with him for 17 years.

“He was going to take over, but decided he’d go to work for someone else and let them have the headaches (of not having enough workers).”

Rogers quit taking on more auto body repair work at the end of October 2024 and had enough work on the books until the end of January 2025.

“I’ve talked to plumbers, mechanics, electricians,  and they also couldn’t find anyone willing,” he said. “Things were tough before COVID-19. After COVID-19 we didn’t have many applicants. It used to be you’d have people stopping in to ask if we were hiring.”

“There used to be tech schools to train people on auto body repair…a lot of them have closed down.”

Nationwide

It is a nationwide problem, according to an article from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Workforce participation remains below pre-pandemic levels. The United States is missing 1.7 million Americans from the workforce compared to February 2020, according to https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage

According to the article

Employers are facing unprecedented challenges trying to find enough workers to fill open jobs. Right now, the latest data shows that there are 8 million job openings in the U.S. but only 6.8 million unemployed workers.

 If every unemployed person in the country found a job, we would still have millions of open jobs. 

Some of the factors for this, according to the article are:

Early retirements and an aging workforce

Net international migration to the U.S. is at its lowest level in decades

Lack of access to child care.

Some opened their own businesses.

Increase in savings: higher-income and savings bolstered people’s economic stability.

Future for Rogers

“I’m not retired, said Rogers, who is 63. “I still own the Alignment Service, east of this building.”

Ryan went to work for a car dealership in Olathe in March, doing bodywork.

“I am basically trying to get ready for an auction, probably in June,” he said. “Trying to sort out and clean out the building. After 37 years in the business, there is a lot of stuff. The building will be for sale.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do after that,” he said.

Rogers bought the business from Frank Burchett in 1987 on East Wall Street. The building isn’t there now because of the new Highway 54 route. He built the current building at 120 W. 19th and opened his business in July 2003.