I have been following the company for quite a while now, and out of the “buy, don’t buy, considering” options, I’m at the “considering buying” stage. The development regarding the US makes me wonder, as I use the differences in contracting cultures as a benchmark. Here in the Nordics, labor is very expensive, which means the equipment and efficiency have to be top-notch—so machines must have tiltrotators and all the bells and whistles. In practice, they are required or simply taken for granted. In the US, on the other hand, they putter around on job sites in jeans and flannel shirts, and cheap labor is readily available. In that case, machine efficiency isn’t the main priority, and I think this puts the brakes on sales. In addition, machines on large job sites are rented, so they are quite basically equipped since there are plenty of shovelers available. If this “jeans culture” doesn’t change, I doubt there will be any real investment in other practices or in valuing the worker anytime soon.
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