Shingle slingers of the world unite! This is a call to arms against the notion that roofing is not a desirable trade to enter, at least according to a somewhat spurious survey published on a safety supply website at the end of September, where roofing topped a list of least desirable jobs in six states: Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia.

Safety product provider Tradesafe, which sells eyewash stations, absorbents and lockout tagout equipment, among other items, and offers industry professionals' analysis, conducted an online survey that garnered 3,000 responses. 

Tradesafe said the methodology used a two-step process to “ensure representativeness through stratified sampling and post-stratification weighting.” Internal data sources — it’s unclear what that means — were used to obtain population data sets. 

While the survey is hardly definitive, it does chafe against the narrative the roofing industry has pushed over the past several years to bolster its ranks, where several thousand jobs remain open due to a skilled trade shortage stretching across multiple points of building envelope construction.

The least desirable jobs are regionally clustered, meaning that while roofing may be a hard pass for Arizona residents, logging is the top ‘thanks, no thanks’ job in Montana, North Dakota, and Vermont. Likewise, steel workers garner the most turned backs in the Rust Belt and Kentucky.

It’s arguably an obscure survey stumbled on during daily wire scans looking for news across North America. However, where a besmirch is made, those of us covering the roofing industry pull no punches. To see the complete list, click HERE.