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Comment by meetingthrower | Hacker News Reader

It's a truly amazing market failure. Up here in New England, you can't get an electrician for love or money. And if you do, you are paying $75 an hour for the lowliest apprentice.

But you go on Reddit, and the poor schlubs in the rest of the country are making <$20 an hour to start. You can make more at McDonalds.

I talked to a friend of mine who runs a big corp electrician unit for a utility. He cannot hire anyone at the rates he wants to pay, and says he cannot pay them market because then he'd "have to reset the comp for his entire 100 man crew." The journeymen coming in are asking for more than supervisor pay (and they should be getting it!)

I predict we are in for more inflation as this works its way through the system.

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> you are paying $75 an hour for the lowliest apprentice.

> But you go on Reddit, and the poor schlubs in the rest of the country are making <$20 an hour to start.

These are not inconsistent at all. The poor schlubs in New England might also be making under $20 per hour. The contractor is taking the rest (and paying quite a bit of it in insurance costs). Some of it is justified, in that the "lowliest apprentice" will have to have her work checked, and possibly re-done. A risk premium. Also, that "lowliest apprentice" is getting her $20 even when not on billable work. She might only be doing paying jobs half of her time.

> It's a truly amazing market failure.

> He cannot hire anyone at the rates he wants to pay, and says he cannot pay them market because then he'd "have to reset the comp for his entire 100 man crew."

A buyer not being able to afford what they want to buy is not market failure. Your friend cannot pay market rate either because the business they are in is no longer viable, or the business is inefficient (paying extra for someone or something it could be paying less).

This is where YouTube and DIY forums come in. It doesn't require advanced knowledge to perform most electrical repairs and maintenance oneself, and young people's practical skills have atrophied compared to their parents and grandparents at the same age, and I say this as one of those young people.

Yes I can't really think of any electrical job around the house that I could not do myself. Calling in an electrician to change an outlet is expensive because such trivial work is boring and they don't really want to do it. Sort of like hiring a senior developer to change a heading on a web page. So they charge a lot. They also have to cover the cost of travel to and from the house, even to change a $5 wall outlet.

I'd probably pay someone to redo the panel. I could definitely do it, but it's tedious and I'd be pulling the meter to get it done anyway, at which point the conversation with the power company will be smoother if a licensed electrician is having it.

But everything else is fair game. It's really straightforward. The part I hate the most is fixing the drywall if I have to damage it running some new wire.

I generally would agree, but be careful. You don't know what you don't know, and that could be dangerous. As one example, I would guess that the vast majority of folks are not familiar with what an MWBC is and how they work, however they're extremely common, especially in older buildings. As another example, most folks have never heard of box fill and will just try to shove wires into a box until it fits.

I'm not an electrician and would definitely encourage folks to learn to do this work themselves, but be careful and if you encounter something that is not familiar, pause and learn until you understand what you're looking at, even if that means putting it back the way it was for a bit and doing some research.

The issue is "on the job" training. Law, medicine, accounting, plumbing, welding, electrical, civil engineering all requires a certain amount of "working hours" measured in months and years before they let you take the certification/licensing exam. You can't always do it yourself and stay compliant with regulatory codes. This is a big problem because it allows existing players to exploit and play gatekeeper. Get rid of this requirement and many labor shortage issues will sort itself out. Don't allow institutions to be the gatekeeper. The certification exams are sufficient.

Partially because those parents and grandparents didn't think it necessary to teach them anything. At least there is YouTube now

It requires a license though, otherwise it's illegal in most places. Youtube can't help with that.

> It requires a license though, otherwise it's illegal in most places. Youtube can't help with that.

Are you actually sure about this? Everywhere I've ever checked, it's been legal for a person to work on the wiring in their own home, without needing to be licensed.

I think Chicago and maybe all of Cook County Illinois are a notable exception to that, and with goofy, overbearing codes to top it off.

That’s where I live and to my knowledge, this is true. We haven’t got a monopoly though. Lived in Atlanta for many years and once asked around a bit. Pretty sure I could not legally do so much as replace a receptacle by myself. From what I can tell, it is usually more rural areas where it’s legal to do your own work and then have it inspected.

Ridiculous. Needless to say, I’ve done plenty of electrical work over the years. Would have loved to have some of it inspected, but that wasn’t allowed.

Exactly this - over-regulation keeps people from using the safety mechanisms at all.

My other favorite example is gun background checks. If I want to sell a gun to a guy in my neighborhood that I don't really know, there's no practical way to do it such that he gets the background check you get when you buy from a dealer. Completely ridiculous.

In Boston it is illegal. Plumbing as well. I tried to hire a plumber and electrician to do simple bathroom rewire and could not find a willing contractor - job too small. "Call us in a couple of months, maybe we will squeeze you in" was a typical response. So, I did it myself, according to code but without pulling the permit. I had not other choice.

Here in HI you are not allowed to do electrical or plumbing work unless licensed, your own home or not.

Rarely true, you can almost always work on your own house. You can't work on anyone else's. And you should still pull permits, though it seems like most people skip it, especially for small stuff.

This very much varies by municipality.

In the coastal big cities where I've lived, you cannot pull electrical permits without a license. And you cannot do electrical work without a permit.

Same for plumbing, which is even less justifiable, I think.

I think the only restriction I've seen in the coastal cities I've lived in is the type of structure.. if you have a detached single-family home, you can almost always do you own electrical as long as it's inspected. It's either that strict or les so for SF (https://sf.gov/apply-electrical-permit), Seattle (https://www.seattle.gov/sdci/permits/permits-we-issue-(a-z)/...), Portland (https://www.portland.gov/bds/residential-permitting/resident...), etc.

Ah good point. On the west coast, I've been thwarted by class of building (and this is reasonable I guess).

On the east coast (New England), many cities and towns don't even make an exception for owner-occupied, detached SFH buildings. Thou absolutely shalt not.

My favorite permitting office experience was in another, shall we say lower-density, part of the country. I wanted to put a subpanel in the barn for a workshop. "Would I need a license for that?" The guy behind the desk asked me how big of a panel I wanted, what size and type of wire I was going to use, distance from the existing service, size of existing service.

He was satisfied with my answers and said "Nah. You're good. Give me a call if you want me to swing by and take a look when you're done, but it sounds like you're fine.". I was in and out of there in like three minutes.

That is true - but the few hours I'd have to invest in this are better spent doing something else (or nothing at all, which is valuable).

And I don't need to do these repairs and maintenance at a frequency which would make learnings 'stick'.

Furthermore, I am afraid (or 'excessively cautious') of electricity, although that might stem from ignorance

In contrast, I've learned to be my own accountant, of sorts, because I have to deal with it frequently enough, and have never heard of a person dying or becoming gravely injured from dealing with a spreadsheet in error

Hah! Exactly. You are talking to a guy who GCed his own house build, all trained off YouTube. And I've done a LOT of electrical as part of it. (But for the sake of speed I hired a crew to get the house wired up in 2 weeks. Also needed them for permits / inspections since it was a new build.)

There's is good money in the trades.

I've done a few small home repairs myself (changing faucets, putting in hard wired smoke detectors, swapping a garbage disposal, putting in a new toilet, and others) I watch a few Youtube videos, and if I'm confident I can do it myself without flooding my house or electrocuting myself, I will. Sometimes it takes an extra trip to the hardware store, because I'm missing a part or tool.

Each one of these repairs would be $300 or $400 minimum in this area. Actually, probably more, since I'm basing that on pre-pandemic prices when I had other things done. I'd guess more like $500 minimum today.

I'm doing a full remodel of my tiny condo on my own now because of exactly what you said. I hired people, found them totally expensive and decided I could do it myself, if I watch enough youtube. It is going really well, but is a slow process. The parts that I don't feel comfortable with, I just hire out.

Curious...why are his 100 man crew sticking with him if they're currently getting well under market rate?

Humans don't like change.

Because when nobody actually pays market rate, market rate is what he pays them.

Security, comfort, etc. there’s a reason many businesses habitually underpay - many don’t leave regardless of pay.

Sure, but it's hard to imagine he doesn't risk losing at least some of his existing employees if there are plenty of other options out there offering considerably more pay. And then be forced into taking on new employees at a considerably higher rate, hoping that won't then seed division/unhappiness in the ranks. It's hard to see it as a long-term viable business strategy anyway.

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