The construction and electrical contracting industries have been grappling with skilled labor shortages for decades. This issue continues to persist—specifically, with the recent rise in project activity following several federal infrastructure bills in 2021–2022, industry experts predict that the construction and contracting industries will be about 500,000 skilled workers short of meeting nationwide project demands in 2024.

In the following roundtable, electrical contractors from across the country discuss staffing, how they identify and attract qualified candidates, and their outlook for skilled labor in the years to come.

Ken Kefalas	Chris Lenahan	Adam Sperry

Is project activity in your area currently strong? Why or why not?

Ken Kefalas, president of Bombard Electric, Las Vegas: Here in the Metro Las Vegas area, the market has been booming for the past 7–8 years, but recently three major construction jobs all finished at the same time and we don’t expect the next big projects to start until later this year. As a result, there’s a significant amount of short-term unemployment among local members. We anticipated this happening and have gone out of our area to keep our pipeline filled; for example, we currently have team members working on data center projects in Reno and Phoenix, which are a 5- to 6-hour drive away. Las Vegas construction activity and hotel renovations go in cycles, and we’d been riding a strong cycle until recently. But a major Las Vegas hotel will soon be undergoing a big renovation with a new tower, quite a few solar installations will be happening throughout the area and Las Vegas will be getting a new ballpark in the next couple of years, so we’re expecting project activity to rebound and remain strong over the long term

Chris Lenahan, district manager, New England Region, Harlan Electric Co., Windham, N.H.: In our part of New England, the market for electric grid upgrades is strong right now. We’re seeing a lot of 115-kilovolt rebuilds (both energized and de-energized), primarily involving the removal of old wood poles or lattice structures and their replacement with light-duty steel poles.

Adam Sperry, general superintendent, Baker Group, Ankeny, Iowa: Project activity in our area is currently strong because, while some parts of the country are in a slower period, years of having more work than available manpower have created a “backlog” of projects that we’re finally able to proceed with. For us, the segments experiencing the greatest strength include small private data centers and commercial buildings doing tenant improvements and small space remodels; basically, companies that are hesitant to make the move to a new space but are willing and in need of 3,000 to 5,000 more square feet. Among the weaker segments in our area, ground-up, large electrical projects (over $750,000 in electrical) are about 25% of what they were a year ago.

How does your company stand right now in terms of having the labor it needs to cover its workload and achieve its goals?

Kefalas: While we’re between major jobs in the Las Vegas market, we’re doing what we can to keep our team members busy. Hotels and casinos are constantly being remodeled, there are some public works projects out there. We’re even working in some schools, which we hadn’t done before. There are a few solar projects underway and ongoing remodels and tenant improvements at restaurants, hotels and casinos, so we’re staying active.

Lenahan: Right now, we have the labor that we need to cover our current workload and achieve our goals for this year. Fortunately, we’ve been able to stay steady in our workforce and the level of manpower we’ve established over the years. In slower times, when work hasn’t been available, we’ve made concessions to keep our team members employed or busy. Very rarely do we employ more than required. We tend to run leaner on our projects and get higher production.

Sperry: We’re very well poised to tackle our current workload and grow. Our operations managers do a tremendous job of reconciling the needs of current and future projects with the size of the labor pool by forecasting months in advance. 

As soon as projects move to a “potential” status, the estimated labor need is added to the forecast. We have the same issues as everyone given the varying tides of the economy, but we make every effort to look as far into the future as possible to minimize the risk of under- or over-staffing projects.

Relative to the last few years, would you say that covering your labor needs is more difficult, less difficult or about the same, and why?

Kefalas: We had over 1,800 people working until recently, but as we’re now between major projects in Las Vegas, we’re currently down to 500. There are some big projects coming up that we hope to secure and that will employ quite a few people, but we can’t make the permitting process go any faster. We complained when we had too much work, but now we complain when things are slower, and we hate to have to lay off some really good people in our field and office. Most contractors out here are suffering through this situation right now, though some smaller contractors are able to maneuver through this a little easier than the larger ones.

Lenahan: Covering our labor needs has been both more and less difficult than in the past, for different reasons. For de-energized work, we don’t seem to have much difficulty obtaining the resources needed to complete projects, but on the energized side, the region seems to be struggling to find candidates with prior barehand/live-line work experience or enough years of experience as a journeyman lineman to meet the criteria of a barehand/live-line journeyman. 

When it comes to barehand-­certified linemen, we’ve been training more in-house linemen as opposed to bringing in previously certified or less-experienced operators and working with them and the union to get their ticket and classification. This approach allows us to train our people the way we want them to work, in keeping with our policies and culture. We’ve also seen a lot of linemen with distribution experience becoming more available since transmission work is currently more prevalent in our region.

Sperry: Covering our labor needs today is about the same as it’s been in the past. We’ve seen some growth in the number of younger applicants to the apprenticeship program, and the more talented electricians have also seen their value increase, as the demand for leaders is greater than ever.

Please share some of the specific methods your firm uses to recruit talented labor. What’s been the most effective approach, and why?

Kefalas: We post positions through our corporation, go to local high schools and colleges during job fair days and employment recruiters refer some people to us (though the latter isn’t always as effective). We like to hire people coming out of the military with construction experience, but those individuals are hard to find. We get a lot of people through our own employees and colleagues at our supply houses. We’re getting more applications for apprentices and we’re also seeing more women coming into all levels of the business, which is great. But right now there’s simply not enough tradespeople here or nationwide. We need every level of employee—field, office, etc.—and we especially need project managers, project engineers and people who know our business.

Lenahan: We’ve gone to career fairs at local colleges to help promote our company and industry and we’ve even participated in career days at elementary schools. Among the messages we share about our profession, we tell students that you don’t need a college education or master’s degree to make good money and be involved in advancing technology in a secondary way. Electricity enables our country to offer all of the systems and opportunities we have, and this industry will allow you to learn and do some pretty cool things.

Sperry: From our experience, the most effective approach is a good partnership with the local JATC and talking to students at the high school level about opportunities in the industry and the monetary outlook for careers in this field. We promote our industry’s income potential in a relatively short apprenticeship period with zero debt. There’s a perception among many students that all trade jobs involve manual labor, but in reality, there’s a bigger mental aspect to our industry than a physical one. Are there days when you’ll be sore? Yes. But are there days when you won’t need to be mentally ready? No.

Finally, what’s your outlook for project activity and the labor pool in your served area for the next few years? Are you optimistic about the future or concerned about labor challenges in the years ahead?

Kefalas: Nobody knows what the future holds, but I believe that our area’s hotels and casinos are always being torn down and built back up in order to remain fresh and appealing to their target markets. A.I., solar and data centers are currently hot, but I think that people will always come to Las Vegas for conventions and tourism, so I’m optimistic about that. And you can’t replace an electrical contractor with A.I., so I’m not concerned that A.I. will impact the need for labor in our industry. Ultimately, there will continue to be strong activity in our market in the long term.

Lenahan: I believe that in the next 2–3 years we’ll still see significant transmission work in the New England region. However, as some utilities’ territories are limited in their geographic footprints, they’ll have completely replaced their transmission infrastructure and will move toward more substation upgrades, etc. With that in mind, we’ll have to adapt our strategies toward performing more non-line-related work such as access and drilling and becoming more competitive on distribution and sub-transmission work, as those facilities haven’t been replaced in some time as well.

Sperry: In our area, we expect project activity to remain steady and the labor pool to experience continued growth in the coming years. I feel optimistic about the future and think that families are more educated about possible career paths forward in this industry than they’ve been in a long time. But we still plan to continue working to make sure that trade school is a topic of discussion in high schools and that it’s being portrayed as something other than a fallback to a college experience.

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