With recession over, need for electricians booms
The future is bright again for electricians and other tradespeople, spurred by a projected $40 billion surge in construction spending in the next two years.
“The construction industry lags,” said Eric Sivertsen of Chatham, executive director of the Northern New Jersey Chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA). “It’s the last one to come out of a recession, and it is just now gearing up.”
With the lure of new work comes an explosion of interest in electrical apprentice programs, which are drawing young people who see in them the promise of a middle-class life.
This year, more than 400 candidates are vying for 40 to 50 apprentice slots at the Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee programs at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 102 headquarters in Parsippany, according to Patrick Della Cava, business manager for the local.
All told, there are currently 277 apprentices in the local program, a joint venture of the IBEW and NECA, whose members hire union electricians. Nationally, there are 40,000 apprentices in 290 such programs.
“We never have to look for apprentices,” Sivertsen said, “but our training programs are always trying to attract women and minorities because on a lot of government projects they like to see a percentage of the workforce comprise women or minorities.”
The story of overflowing interest in the electrical field is echoed at the Morris County School of Technology in Denville, which runs two types of apprenticeship programs—one for high school students who participate in a share-time arrangement, studying both academics and a trade, and another for adults outside the school district.
“We have an apprenticeship program both in electrical and plumbing, and, for the past three years, enrollment has been very good in both,” said Irene Schrader, manager of continuing education. “In fact, we turn people away because our capacity is limited.
“Our maximum is 22 to 24 students in a class,” she added. “We have had occasions where we’ve run two sections because we’ve had so many.”
Such popularity is no mystery to those who run four-year apprenticeship programs, in which an apprentice attends electrical classes at night and works in a paid position with a licensed electrician during the day.
After an apprentice completes four years, he or she works full time in the field for one year as a journeyman, explained Joe Miktus, apprenticeship coordinator for the Morris County School of Technology. Only after the fifth year is complete can a journeyman sit for a state-administered exam and get a license.
Those who join the Electrical Apprentice Program at the Morris County School of Technology know it’s a long haul, but a paid one, Miktus said. They also realize electrical skills are in demand.
19.7 percent growth
According to ProjectionsCentral.com, the field is projected for 19.7 percent growth, with the number of available positions increasing from 583,500 in 2012 to 698,200 in 2022.
Pay for a licensed electrician—the ultimate goal for many apprentices, though some will opt against licensing and work at jobs with a licensed foreman—is similarly attractive. The annual mean wage for an electrician in the New York/New Jersey Metro Area in May 2013 was $37.44 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Annually, that’s $77,870.
“Interest in the Electrical Apprentice Program is growing,” Miktus said. “I field a lot of phone calls from parents now. I have families come in and I try to help them determine whether their son or daughter wants to do plumbing or electrical. I’ll give them options, go through the catalog, let them meet instructors, and take them for a tour of the campus.”
Rich Lyzenga of Branchville is now a second-year electrical apprentice at the Morris County School of Technology and he works during the day for Jet Electrical Service of Oak Ridge, which sponsors him. That means Jet pays the $4,800 tuition—$1,200 per year—for Lyzenga to go through the program, which follows the standard Independent Electrical Contractors curriculum.
Lyzenga, 26, graduated Sussex Technical High School and immediately went to work in the field.
“At first I didn’t know which specialty to choose,” he recalled. “My grandma said, ‘Electricians make a lot of money.’ So I figured I might as well give it a shot. I researched it a little bit and I went for it. I enjoy working with my hands.”
He’s never looked back.
“I make $15 an hour now as an apprentice,” Lyzenga said. “I’m definitely glad I went this route instead of getting all that debt for college. This is a good path.”
Well-defined program paths for the trades—with plenty of guidance from Miktus, who even shepherds apprentices through their paperwork with the state—is exactly what the Morris County School of Technology offers.
In the past few years, to help with increased interest, Schrader said, the district created two one-semester programs, Introduction to Electrical Trades and Introduction to Plumbing Trades.
“These are for folks who think they want to be an electrician but have never wired anything,” she explained. “At the end of the intro courses, the hope is folks can get jobs as helpers, either an electrician’s helper or a plumber’s helper, and segue into one of our apprenticeship programs.”
A big shift
All the activity represents a huge shift in a field that licensed electricians were exiting during the Great Recession, which technically extended from 2007 to 2009 but lasted much longer for the construction industry.
“A lot of older electricians packed it in during the recession. This last round was really rough. There really was a shortage of work,” said Joe Esposito, owner of the 40-year-old Esposito’s Electric in Denville and past president of the New Jersey Electrical Contractors Association.
“Many of the older guys looked to do something different,” added Esposito, who has sponsored many apprentices. “They sought other professions. A very good friend of mine moved up to New England. He’s 62. He decided to collect his Social Security and retire.”
At times the discouragement was even more profound than that, according to Carl Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. He said the trades were unpopular for a long while because of an emphasis on attending college and a decline in the number of apprenticeships offered through unions.
“Even certified electricians were encouraging their children not to follow in their path,” Van Horn said, adding that the attitude toward apprenticeships and the trades has changed nationwide.
“There’s a resurgence of interest because of the difficulties that some baccalaureate students have entering the work force,” Van Horn said, “and the realization that a skilled tradesperson can make a significant living.”
Esposito said all his apprentices are making more than all of their friends who have graduated college.
“And they don’t have $200,000 in debt and that’s a big factor,” he said. “I’ve got guys who have finished a four-year apprenticeship who are making $50,000 to $60,000 a year.”
Twenty-eight-year-old Ray Klas, an apprentice at the Morris County School of Technology, said he’s been changing outlets since he was three. His father, also Ray Klas, owns Klas Electrical Contractors, based in Chatham Borough, a 30-year-old business that has survived the recession.
After working with cars and with HVAC, and graduating another electrical apprentice program in California, Klas said he’s finally getting just what he needs.
“At the business, we do everything,” Klas said, “but we tend not to do new construction anymore because it’s so driven to be cheap. We’re a little bit more expensive than Joe Schmo Electric because anybody who works for us has experience. Ninety percent of our work is fixing other people’s mistakes. The contractors always call us in at the end to do the finish work. They call us the finish electricians.”
He wants to help the business keep pace with new trends, too, he said. Already, Klas Electrical specializes in lighting controls and, ever since hurricanes Irene and Sandy, Kohler Generators.
“We do a lot of training with the generations,” Klas said. “I’m going out to the Kohler facility in Wisconsin in April for two weeks for training on the liquid cooled units. Being an electrician doesn’t just deal with residential wiring, anymore.”
Jobs and more jobs
The view of more work right over the horizon has many in the electrical trades buzzing.
Kevin Conover of Wantage, owner of Conover Electric and full-time teacher of the electrical trades at the Morris County School of Technology, said phones of Morris County contractors are starting to ring again this year.
“We are seeing a lot more people looking for more work. It’s a big pickup,” Conover said. “The homeowner side of the business is hit and miss. People do not want to expand because they’re worried about taxes going up. But they are updating and renovating. I also see a lot of bigger stuff on the horizon, coming in—renovations of commercial buildings and doctors’ offices.”
Additionally, he said, calls are coming in for updating and renovating vacant 1980s office building stock in Morris County.
“They’re trying to bring everything up to the new standards that everybody’s looking for when they move in,” Conovers said. “Tenants don’t want to move into an old building. They want to move into a real nice building.”
He’s excited about the new demand, he said, and the plentiful number of high-caliber apprentices he sees entering the field to meet that demand.
Outside Morris, electricians are working on, or anticipating, large projects, according to Bob Lynch, who also teaches at the Morris County tech school and is a member of IBEW Local 102. These include the Bayway Refinery in Linden, he said, as well as new mall projects, including the 2.4 million-square-foot American Dream Meadowlands mall, formerly known as Meadowlands Xanadu, in East Rutherford, and the 600,000-square-foot Crossroads Town Center in Mahwah.
By definition, the trades are a nomadic profession: electricians, like plumbers, HVAC specialists, and carpenters, go where the work is. The territory covered by the IBEW Local 102—whose membership, Lynch said, dropped from 4,000 in the year 2000 to 3,000 members today— goes from the Passaic River to Bethlehem, Pa., and from High Point down to New Brunswick.
So not all of the $40 billion in projected private- and public-sector construction growth in New Jersey for 2015 and 2016, as reported by the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, will be conveniently located for Morris-based electricians. But some will.
According to Sivertsen, a lot of slated higher education work is expected to be a boon. For instance, work is now under way at the $120 million mixed-used Campus Town Project at The College of New Jersey even as NJIT announced plans for a $100 million sports facility and wellness center. Middlesex County Community College also announced two new buildings that will open in Spring 2016—a Center for Student Services and South Hall, a science building.
Building in the pharmaceutical industry, at mixed-use facilities, and on solar farms also likely will bring electricians much work, Sivertsen added.
From the vantage point of Van Horn, of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, there will be continuing long-term demand for electricians and other skilled tradespeople.
Lorraine Ash: 973-428-6660; lash@njpressmedia.com
Learn more
• APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM: Morris County School of Technology Electrical Apprentice Program, http://tinyurl.com/oc8prmx ; Apprenticeship Coordinator Joe Miktus, 973-627-4600, ext. 245, miktusj@mcvts.org ; Continuing Education Manager Irene Schrader, 973-627-4600, ext. 231, schraderi@mcvts.org
• APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM: Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee Application Process, IBEW Local 102, Parsippany, http://tinyurl.com/lmtx2nl
• ASSOCIATION: Independent Electrical Contractors Association, New Jersey Chapter, Springfield, www.nj-iec.org
• ASSOCIATION: National Electrical Contractors Association, Northern New Jersey Chapter, Mountainside, www.necannj.com/neca
• ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR: Joseph Esposito, Esposito’s Electric, Denville, www.espositoelectric.com
• UNION: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 102, Parsippany, www.ibewlocal102.org
• WEBSITE: Career Overview, National Labor-Management Cooperation Committee, www.electrifyingcareers.com