'Our biggest challenge has been finding labor': Moving company CEO

Writer

Thu, 10 Sept 2020, 9:32 am·2-min read

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many things in U.S. society, including how Americans work and go to school. It’s also changing where people want to live. Marc Rogers, CEO of the moving company UniGroup, joined Yahoo Finance to discuss the company’s high demand as many Americans look to relocate.

“We are starting to see that movement and a lot of things happening for consumers as they’re making decisions quite a bit driven by the pandemic. ... We’ve always asked, ‘Why are you moving?’ But specifically is COVID driving that — We’re seeing over 10% of our consumers are making the decisions to move because of the pandemic,” Rogers said.

“I think a lot of people are asking the question ... ‘Can I keep working from home?’ And that’s actually driving a lot of the volume that we’re seeing ... as companies make that decision to not come back into the office to go ahead and make a move and maybe live in a location that they’ve always wanted to live or live closer to family.”

Young son helping father move items from moving truck into new house

When asked about the current state of the U.S. economy, Rogers believes that, at least for UniGroup, the economy looks to be coming back. However, he does admit that finding labor is a challenge that the company is contending with.

“It is starting to come back for us. Our peak season is traditionally from Memorial Day to Labor Day, August and even looking into September. Now that we’re past Labor Day, we’re double-digit exceeding last year when it comes to moving. I expect to see that start to soften, especially as we get into October. And our biggest challenge has actually been finding labor and really getting people to come out and join our industry again. So we do have demand, and we’ve been looking to fill that demand,” he said.

“Where we are continuing to see a decline is in our corporate account business. And that’s when we’re not sure if we’re going to see that come back or not. And really time will tell as we get into 2021, if that is something that will come back or if we’re now facing a new normal.”

Reggie Wade is a writer for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @ReggieWade.

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