Utilities Brace for Worker Shortage

Utilities Brace for Worker Shortage

HERNDON, Va. --May 17 - USA TODAY

Chain saw in hand, Ray Bryan elevates his cherry picker against a cloudless blue sky with a cheerful, "Get her on up."

With swift, assured movements, he shaves the top off a 35-foot power pole at the site of a planned commercial complex here and warbles, "HEADache!" as he drops the stump -- a deadpan warning for helpers below to steer clear.

Bryan, 47, is one of the nation's 100,000 utility line workers, a stout breed that blends inconspicuously into the daily streetscape. Utility workers, and the infrastructure they maintain, are routinely taken for granted, but their absence will surely be noticed.

Like tens of thousands of his peers, Bryan -- an employee of Dominion Virginia Power or its predecessors for 28 years -- is considering retiring in about seven years, when he becomes eligible for full benefits. Yet there aren't nearly enough young power industry workers in the pipeline to take their place. The nation faces a shortage of utility workers just as it gears up for the biggest wave of construction in decades to meet soaring power demand.

The crunch is already affecting many cities -- slowing new hookups for electric service, delaying post-storm power restorations and forcing utilities to skimp on maintenance. It cuts across job categories, from line workers and plant operators to senior engineers.

"It's creating a real serious crisis," says Michael Brown, a consultant for Hay Group's national energy practice. "Everything in this country runs on electricity."

About half the USA's 400,000 power industry workers, largely baby boomers, are eligible to retire in the next five to 10 years, according to Carnegie Mellon University's Electricity Industry Center. The industry already has shed about 40% of its workforce since 1990 in response to deregulation, the center says. As many states froze electric rates in the 1990s, utilities cut payrolls to fatten profits and offset losses from the low-priced sale of power plants, says center co-director Lester Lave. Companies shut down or scaled back training programs.

That undercut the main appeal of a utility job: stable, lifelong employment. Today, high school graduates "are looking at jobs with computers sitting in an office, rather than working with their hands," says Jim Hunter, utility director for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union.

Never mind that a line worker is among the country's highest-paid jobs that don't require a college degree. Average annual salaries, with overtime, are $75,000, and most line workers today make more than $100,000, Hunter says.

Yet electric utilities are vying for workers against phone and cable giants, which are also beefing up their staffs as they upgrade networks. Plus, utility jobs "are very physically demanding," Hunter says. "You're working in inclement weather, and it can be dangerous."

High-wire risks

Line workers handle wires bristling with up to 765,000 volts of electricity. Electric shocks and fires each year injure or kill dozens of line workers who aren't adequately protected. Bryan wears foot-long rubber gloves and arm sleeves and spends half an hour meticulously covering wires with orange insulation blankets before starting his task: removing a pole to make way for a new sewer line.

"You're always thinking something could happen," says the wiry lineman, who sports a sun-beaten face and easygoing manner. Despite the hazards, he says, "I like being outside and working with my hands and not being cooped up in an office somewhere."

Jobs such as operations managers and engineers are less hazardous but no more popular. Most technically minded college graduates are opting for careers in software development, aerospace and biotech, not power engineering, Brown says. College bachelor's degree programs turn out about 500 power engineering grads a year vs. nearly 2,000 in the 1980s, says Dennis Ray of the Power Systems Engineering Research Center.

The power industry's image was battered by the 2000 California energy crisis and 2003 Northeast blackout, says Wanda Reder, president-elect of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' power group.

Even after utility workers from across the country rushed to the Gulf region to restore power to millions after Hurricane Katrina, "We just didn't get the positive press" that firefighters did after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, she says. People "take electricity for granted."

Disagreeing is Mary Miller, president of the Center for Energy Workforce Development, a year-old group that's helping the industry recruit and train utility workers. She says the industry's response to Katrina "elevated our image. People are beginning to realize what a precious commodity energy is."

She also disputes the existence of an industrywide worker shortage.

There are, however, at least pockets of staffing strains across the USA. EnergyCentralJobs.com, which mostly targets power engineers and managers, lists about 2,400 job openings, nearly double the late-2005 total. Signs of the crunch:

*In Seattle, there's a five-month wait for a new-home residential power hookup, instead of the normal two months, says Jorge Carrasco, superintendent for Seattle City Light, the city-owned utility.

*Dominic Rivara, business manager for IBEW Local 51, blames long power outages in central Illinois after a late November ice storm on Ameren's undermanned crews. About 40% of the 236,000 customers who lost power were still without service five days later. State regulators are investigating. Ameren's Leigh Morris blames the storm's severity, saying Ameren has "adequate staffing."

*John Holt, president of IBEW Local 1900, says Potomac Electric Power, or Pepco, in Washington, D.C., has scaled back its tree-trimming and pole-replacement programs because of manpower shortages, slowing customer hookups and repairs. Pepco spokesman Robert Dobkin disputes that.

*In New York City, Con Edison is hiring livery drivers, at $35 an hour, to shoo people away from about 1,500 electrically charged manholes, streetlights and other objects until repair crews arrive. Joe Flaherty, a spokesman for Local 1-2 of the Utility Workers Union of America, blames Con Ed for bare-bones crews that can't adequately prevent and fix the so-called hot spots, which are caused by nearby exposed wires.

Con Ed's Chris Olert says the utility is properly staffed, adding, "The use of livery car drivers is a safety issue, not a labor issue."

Many utilities are making do by asking more of their skilled workers. In Illinois, about 1,600 Commonwealth Edison line workers, cable splicers and equipment operators are suing the company, saying a requirement that they respond to at least 35% of off-hours calls forces them to log 1,000 to 2,000 overtime hours a year. Lineman Peter Jonites, who initiated the lawsuit, says, "Your life's on hold. I'm missing my kids growing up."

ComEd's Arlana Johnson notes the company won in arbitration against the workers and "is confident it will prevail" in court.

Challenges ahead

A bigger worker crunch looms. With power demand expected to soar 50% by 2030, utilities are planning hundreds of plants and thousands of miles of transmission lines. The surge is due to population and business growth and bigger homes brimming with computers and plasma TVs. Yet there may not be enough welders, plant operators and other skilled workers to build and run all the new facilities.

Especially affected is the nuclear power industry, which is girding for a revival after a decades-long construction hiatus following the 1979 Three Mile Island partial meltdown.

The 33 nuclear reactors on the drawing board "will not get built as quickly as we want," says Dale Klein, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "You'll see regions where there are shortages of electricity" that trigger blackouts or brownouts.

Andrew White, head of General Electric's nuclear group, acknowledges the company has missed deadlines to provide documents for NRC approval of its new nuclear reactor design because of an engineer shortage. But he insists the project will meet its 2009 target date for final NRC certification.

Lave says that, because of labor shortages, many older coal plants will not meet a 2010 deadline to install pollution-control devices.

Companies are scrambling to fill the shortfall. Bonneville Power Administration in the Pacific Northwest is offering hiring bonuses of up to 25% of annual salary to skilled workers. First Energy in Ohio hired 1,000 workers each of the past two years and plans to continue that pace through 2015, doubling its workforce, says spokeswoman Ellen Raines. Many companies are raiding competitors to recruit employees, the union's Hunter says.

Florida Power & Light uses midwinter ads with alluring beach images to attract workers in cold-weather states to "sunny South Florida."

The industry is also fanning out to sell students and guidance counselors on a career in the power industry. "You can have a very well-compensated career without a traditional college degree and provide a critical community service," Miller says.

Gulf Power in northern Florida has started a power industry academy at two local high schools. Companies such as American Electric Power and First Energy are setting up courses for skilled workers at community colleges, often paying students' tuition. Such two-year programs can significantly shorten a line worker's typical five-year apprenticeship.

Landon Wagner, 19, gave up a four-year football scholarship to enroll in a community college program in North Canton, Ohio, to study to be a lineman. First Energy is paying his $7,000 tuition.

"I didn't want to sit in a classroom all day," he says. "I really wanted to be outside. And there's always going to be the need for electricity."

Meanwhile, Exelon, General Electric and others are providing research grants and scholarships for power engineering programs at four-year colleges.

Jessica DeLaRosa, 23, a University of Illinois grad, was considering a career in medical imaging but decided to join Exelon as a nuclear engineer after a company executive talked to her class.

Noting that nuclear plants emit none of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, she says, "I can walk out of here knowing I made the world a little better and a little cleaner."