Power industry faces labor short-circuit
CINCINNATI — Raymond Miller doesn’t want to flip a light switch on one night and find out he’s in the dark because there weren’t enough workers to keep the country’s power industry going.
“I think there’s a good chance there will be a serious problem if the industry can’t find enough people quickly enough to fill jobs that are already coming open,” said Miller, the University of Cincinnati’s superintendent of utilities and a former manager in the commercial power industry.
Figures vary among companies, but industry officials estimate that about half of the approximately 400,000 employees in the work force will be eligible for retirement over the next five to 10 years. These include workers who operate power plant equipment and repair the lines carrying electricity to homes and businesses.
The first of the baby boomers reach 60 this year. Worried about the potential exodus and having enough trained replacements, utilities are asking more career and technical schools and colleges to offer courses in power plant operations.
The companies also are offering grants and scholarships and helping develop curriculums that include algebra and calculus as well as courses on environmental regulations, combustion engines and electrical circuits.
“It’s become increasingly apparent that this is an industrywide situation and that we need a more national, industrywide approach to meeting critical work force needs,” said Mary Miller, president of the newly formed Center for Energy Workforce Development and vice president of Edison Electric Institute.
A handful of schools have offered power industry training programs previously, but in the past two to four years utilities have started aggressively seeking out colleges to create more.
Austin Community College in Texas started a power technology degree program in May with seven students and now has about 35. Youngstown State University’s two-year electrical lineworker program has grown from 11 students in 2002 to 43, and its power plant program has grown from 14 students in 2003 to 73.
“We have been getting calls from other schools and companies wanting to set up something similar,” said Hector Aguilar, chairman of the electronics and advanced technologies department at Austin Community.
The retirement of veteran workers is a particular problem in the power industry. Utilities hired fewer people over the past 10 to 20 years as the companies trimmed costs to achieve profitability amid deregulation. Electricity demand also rises with increased use of technology.
Duke Energy Corp., which worked with the University of Cincinnati to develop power plant training, knows that electricity supply is going to become tighter and more power plants will have to be built, said Steve Brash, a spokesman for the utility based in Charlotte, N.C.
“We want to promote educational programs that can provide a work force able to operate these new facilities as they come online,” he said.