I was a boat mechanic so maybe not the same thing, but the complaints I heard in the industry was primarily just centered around the fact that were no good workers. Either they knew nothing or they had a shit work ethic, usually it was both. I'd like to say I was an exception, but I did also leave the industry because of low pay so maybe I'm part of that problem.
Basically people who work hard and know their stuff are usually underpaid and tend to have employment already, which makes the good ones hard to poach.
Another pain point is the fact that almost all of the work is centered around a couple of times of the year where you suddenly need extra workers to and hours to handle it and then it goes down. This makes it so that if you want people ready for high season, you usually have to hire them fully and pay them on the low season, which breaks even or loses you what you gained to begin with. If you offer hourly salary, then you'll struggle to compete with the exact same businesses as yours who all have their high season at the same time.
The auto shops I've hard of that do really well have been nichely interested in some subculture that tends to have cars as their hobby. In Sweden we have "raggare" and "rockabilly" which are like people obsessed with american cars and american 50s culture. The auto repair shops that also do paint jobs and things that serve this demographics every car need tend to thrive at least in Sweden. While the everyday people get serviced literally the same and only when they absolute have to which tends to be all at the same time.
I'm by no means an expert so take my input with a grain of salt
Basically people who work hard and know their stuff are usually underpaid and tend to have employment already, which makes the good ones hard to poach.
Another pain point is the fact that almost all of the work is centered around a couple of times of the year where you suddenly need extra workers to and hours to handle it and then it goes down. This makes it so that if you want people ready for high season, you usually have to hire them fully and pay them on the low season, which breaks even or loses you what you gained to begin with. If you offer hourly salary, then you'll struggle to compete with the exact same businesses as yours who all have their high season at the same time.
The auto shops I've hard of that do really well have been nichely interested in some subculture that tends to have cars as their hobby. In Sweden we have "raggare" and "rockabilly" which are like people obsessed with american cars and american 50s culture. The auto repair shops that also do paint jobs and things that serve this demographics every car need tend to thrive at least in Sweden. While the everyday people get serviced literally the same and only when they absolute have to which tends to be all at the same time.
I'm by no means an expert so take my input with a grain of salt