Industries That Are Struggling More Than People May Think

We've all heard that we cannot know what someone else is going through without walking a mile in their shoes.

While that's true of people, that can also be true of the companies and businesses that are in operation all around us.

As successful as a business might seem on the surface, they might be struggling to not fail behind the scenes.

Cringing at the thought, Redditor maxxor6868 asked:

"What industry is struggling way more than people think?"

Laundry At Home

"Dry cleaners! More people are working from home and using more casual wear."

"Some places may never go back to anywhere near the same volume."

- doublepinkeye_

"It’s also ridiculously expensive to dry clean a shirt."

- Kemecso

Veterinary Services

"Veterinary. On top of being notoriously low pay and high burnout, the hedge funds discovered us in the last five years."

"90 percent of the local clinics in my area sold corporate and workers and clients are increasingly unpleased. Corporations tried to push a human healthcare model (because that works so well) increasing prices, block scheduling so vets see fewer patients in a day, and pushing insurance. Insurance is a great idea for emergencies, but last week Nationwide, the #1 pet insurer dropped 100k clients from their coverage."

"So now we have a bunch of hedge funders trying to run medicine like a retail or food business (you can't and keep it ethical. Medical businesses should never be run like retail businesses), making people dependent on insurance, only for insurance to act like a business and drop policies for not being profitable, in a field with no protections and very unlikely to ever get protections."

"I literally save lives. I do the job of a nurse, a CNA, a phlebotomist, a dental hygienist, a rad tech, an ultrasound tech, a pharmacist, a surgical tech, a groomer, a behavioralist and a janitor every day, and I could make more at Walmart."

- featheredzebra

Video Editing

"I've been a professional video editor for the last 12 years, and have never gone more than a week without a job, I've made stuff for many of the country's biggest brands, and have a solid resume."

"For the first time in my life, I've been submitting resumes every single day for the last four months and have not had one interview."

"It's tough out there right now, fingers crossed my luck takes a turn!"

- nomercyvideo

Retirement Era

"Lineman for powerlines. All the experience is retiring. It's a huge change right now."

- Lonely-Ad-6448

"Phone company is the same way. There's about to be a huge retirement crisis over there."

- wonko42

In Case Of Emergency

"Emergency medical services, Paramedics, and such."

- Future-Eggplant2404

"The people doing the work, largely, are hilariously underpaid. For every place offering $86,000 starting, there’s three to five places trying to pay a critical care paramedic $18 per hour."

- KP_Wrath

Dangerous Out There

"Trucking. I have been in transportation for 36 years, and you would be scared to drive on the same road if you met some of these truck drivers."

"Up until the pandemic, you would have a bad driver come through once in awhile. Now it’s rare to have a driver that understands basic instructional. How are they passing driver tests?"

"I try to stay off the freeways whenever possible."

- neversaynotosugar

Lost Their Sight Of Priorities

"Retail pharmacy."

"Complete lack of PBM (Pharmacy Benefit Manager) regulation and corporate greed is going to lead to massive closures across the country."

- tomismybuddy

"CVS Pharmacy workers appear to be the most overworked people on the planet regardless of location right now."

- CharlotteRant

Live Entertainment

"Live music. People see big concerts happening and assume live music is doing pretty much as well as it always has. Not true. Small and medium-sized venues are struggling hard. Local bands are struggling hard and small to medium-sized touring acts are struggling hard."

"People don't go and seek out live music like they did 20 years ago. Small live music bars with built-in crowds of regulars who would always show up to check out the band of the week used to be commonplace, but today they are very very rare."

- skeisfunk

The Bar Scene

"Almost all my friends are either teachers or musicians. I run merch tables for a couple of local bands, they do lots of bar shows."

"I'm going to be honest and say that I think the bar scene as a whole is dying."

"People are drinking less in general. Drinks at the bar are expensive. The only people who come to weeknight shows are either friends of the bands or old alcoholics who say dirty sh*t to me and try to get free merch."

"Weekends are better, but if you're a headlining local band, be ready for all the friends of the other bands to leave before your set. Plus you have bands that sneak all their friends in without paying the cover."

"Even dedicated venues have a harder and harder time. We had a show at a reasonably well-known local punk/metal venue recently and they just found out they've been hit with a 10 PM noise curfew. So you have to push the start time up, line up fewer bands, and hound them to get loaded in and sound checked in time, plus push a faster turnaround between sets."

"People have less time to mingle, buy drinks, and merch. Overall it becomes less profitable for them to even host shows."

"It's rough out here."

- pineapple_rodent

The Local Art Scene

"Musicians and artists. The middle class in general has been gutted over the last 20 years and they were the first line of support for independent artists. So many smaller mom-and-pop venues were crushed during the pandemic and either transitioned away from live music or closed entirely."

"You will still see a lot of people pushing their craft but working-class, full-time artists in every medium have almost disappeared."

- AliasAlien

"Whenever someone sees me draw stuff, they urge me to leave manufacturing and make art my career which will definitely be chill, successful, and fulfilling."

"I always wonder if they bought their brain at the dollar store."

- PancakeMixEnema

Bottlenecking The Industry

"The alcohol business; the craft beer bubble burst, wine is failing to capture any young demographic. Younger demographics tend to drink less (for health reasons, cost reasons, and many just prefer other options instead). The biggest alcohol distributor in the country just laid off around 3500 people across the country."

"Yes, people will always drink, but the worse the economy gets, the more people will trade down to the cheap stuff."

- dbumba

Problems On Wheels

"The auto industry but, they really did it to themselves. Too much inventory, no one buying the high end trucks because they're too pricey."

"I work for a plant that makes parts for the big three and we've been barely working four days a week, where pre-pandemic we were working six or seven days."

- Queenalicious89

The Need For Farming

"Agriculture industry."

- Blindman630

"Between the price of farmable land and equipment, it's also almost impossible just to get into farming if you're not already established or wealthy. Almost everyone I know out here who farms works on family-owned land that they inherited through the generations. Hail storms have also decimated a lot of crops this year. Several thousand acres of corn got demolished over the summer."

- Bear_Jim

Sadly...

"It would be easier to name an industry that is NOT on this list."

- Raiderboy105

"Whoever makes those ridiculous balloon displays for graduations and birthdays, and the people who write on celebration cakes, seem to be doing fine."

- bigperms33

Those Were The Days

"It is so crazy to read all these comments and personally remember a time when going to the mall, movies, bowling, arcades, restaurants, museums, art fairs, etc., were all regular activities..."

"And people were excited for teacher celebration week cause they loved their teacher so much and couldn't wait to give them their gift, some homemade..."

"And riding your bikes around with your friends to go sit in a field somewhere and talk was the highlight of your day after school. I kinda wish the world would just slow down."

- ColleenLotR

"Absolutely this. I have had this conversation with my partner a few times recently. The idea that you used to be able to just, for example, go ice skating without it being something you need to f**king save up for in the past is insane."

"Every activity is so highly monetized nowadays and public spaces are so kid unfriendly that I genuinely don't know what the f**k kids are supposed to do anymore... Other than scrolling on their phones and playing video games."

"Don't get me wrong, I love gaming and think it can be really valuable social time with friends or even enriching if you're playing some good single-player games... But there's just nowhere physical for folks to just hang out without getting fleeced anymore."

- TheAlbinoAmigo

With prices constantly on the rise, it's unfortunately no surprise that these industries are suffering.

Bills and groceries must come first, making it harder to go out and enjoy ourselves or support local artists. But it also means cutting corners on electronics, cars, and groceries, which hurts those larger industries just as much.