Mischa Fisher - Angi’s Skilled Trades in America Report

By Colin Sheehan, RCS Reporter. 

The trades have often been overlooked as having an important impact on the economy, yet this report finds their influence more than substantial. 

In Season 3, Episode 64 of Roofing Road Trips, RCS President, Heidi J. Ellsworth, visits with Mischa Fisher, chief economist from Angi Leads (formerly HomeAdvisor Pro). Together, they discuss Angi’s Skilled Trades in America report which highlights the effects of dynamic factors such as the Coronavirus pandemic, material and labor shortage that have impacted the home service industry. This is the second annual version of Angi’s report on the skilled trades, with a year-over-year look at how the industry is earning, aging and recruiting, and at how job satisfaction is holding up alongside changes in business practices and technology adoption. They also talk through how individual business owners and tradespeople can strategically navigate the market. 

Before Mischa landed a job with Angi, she worked as the chief economist for the state of Illinois. In this position, she looked at how they could make labor markets more efficient in terms of removing bureaucratic barriers so people could more easily grow their businesses, hire people and get their materials or services into the marketplace. At Angi, Mischa looks at the market from a different perspective, investigating consumer tendencies that influence business. 

“My role at Angi is to think about how consumers are spending their money,” said Mischa. “What are the big, long-term trends driving [the market]? How are pros responding to that? What's going on in the marketplace as a result of this intersection of behavior between consumer spending and pro behavior? How are prices shaping up? What's going on with materials and supply chains and all of those different factors impacting the market?” 

Mischa has found that there is typically a lot of overlap between using applied statistics and what’s actually going on in the trade labor markets. What she tries to do day in and day out is help people understand the market and what influences its changes.  

“We want to make sure that that information is readily available for you if that's something that you're interested in understanding,” said Mischa. 

The second version of Angi's Skilled Trades in America report does just that, with a specific analysis on how the trades influence economic trends. Unfortunately, people have typically look at universities, large CEOs and even bankers for insights on economics, and consequently have had ignored the influence of the trades, which is substantial. Trades men and women are the people making homes, roofs, cars and everything else that society needs to function at its most basic level. This report looks at who these trades people are, what they’re earning, what kind of work they do and even their expectations for the future.  

“[We] put that all together so that people take the trades seriously. There's been this stereotype for the last 20, 30 years that the tradesperson is kind of the rough around the edges," said Mischa. “Whereas what we're trying to do is say, ‘These are very serious jobs. People make great money doing it. They love their work. They're innovative. They're entrepreneurial. And we need to understand what's going on in the skilled trades and people should take this sector really seriously.’ So our report is doing that deep dive across all these facets of the trades.” 

Listen to the entire podcast to hear more about Angi’s report including some interesting statistics that reveal the trades’ impact on economic fluctuations.