What a bad journeyman hire costs an electrical contractor

A "journeyman" who can't do journeyman work costs about $10,900 in three weeks in our worked example: wages for work you didn't get, foreman time, rework, a slipped schedule and the cost to replace him. No construction study pins down this number, so every figure below is an example a PM can check and change. The fix is cheap by comparison: a phone screen, a license check and a bench test before day one.

01What makes it a bad hire, not just a quit

A bad hire stays on the payroll doing the wrong work, and that costs more than an empty seat.

When a good hand quits, you lose his production and you know it the same day. When a so-called journeyman can't bend conduit, you pay full J-man rate, your foreman babysits, the man next to him slows down, and you find his mistakes later. One national electrical contractor told us agencies kept sending them "so-called journeymen that can't bend conduit," hands with "apprentice licenses" who were "basically laborers." As one of them put it: "We don't have the time nor the bandwidth to be able to deal with people like that."

They're not alone. In the AGC and NCCER 2026 survey, half of firms said available candidates lack the skills, certificates or licenses the work needs, and it's part of why the 2026 electrician shortage feels worse than the headcount numbers. Most electricians learn the trade in a 4 or 5 year apprenticeship (BLS). An apprentice card means he's still in it, whatever his resume says.

This post is about that man. If you want the math for a good hand who walks, see what it costs when a journeyman quits.

02A worked example: three weeks with a fake journeyman

This is an example, not an invoice. Swap in your own rate, crew and costs.

Say you hire a man as a journeyman at $45 an hour on 5-8s. On paper he has 8 years in. On the job, he gets about 40% of a J-man's work done: he can pull wire, but his bends need redoing and his terminations don't pass your foreman's look. It takes three weeks (15 working days, 120 hours) before you send him home.

Notes so the math holds up:

• The 60% line is what you paid for and didn't get. You still got 40% of his hours in useful work, so that part isn't counted as a loss.
• 7.65% is the employer share of Social Security (6.2%) and Medicare (1.45%), per the IRS. Unemployment tax and workers' comp vary by state and carrier, so they're left out. On the other labor lines, add your own burden. For a yardstick, BLS puts legally required benefits in private construction at $4.42 an hour on $36.13 in wages (June 2026), about 12% (our math).
• The $1,000 a day stands in for supervision, trailer, lifts, rentals and trucks on a job that runs three days longer. Use your own general conditions.
• The replacement line is just to get the next man through the door. If the next one also needs ramp-up, that's more.

03The costs that aren't in the table

Some of the worst costs of a bad hire don't fit on a line.

• Inspection. A failed rough-in means a re-inspection and a day you can't cover the work. If his terminations are the problem, the risk isn't just money.
• Safety. A man who doesn't know what he doesn't know is the one who works it hot or skips the lockout. One incident costs more than everything in the table.
• The crew. Good hands notice when a man at J-man rate can't do J-man work. Some take it as a sign of how you hire.
• The GC. Rework that shows up on the punch list goes on your name, not his.
• The empty seat after. Once he's gone, you're short-handed until the next hire is productive. Our post on what a short-handed crew really costs puts numbers on that.

04Is it worse when he came from an agency?

Usually, because you pay the agency's bill rate for every hour he's there.

The same contractor told us an agency billed them $87.50 an hour, plus per diem, for what turned out to be apprentices. At that rate, 120 hours is $10,500 in labor billing alone, before per diem, rework or foreman time. Part of any bill rate pays real costs like payroll taxes and comp, but you still paid journeyman money for apprentice work.

If you use agencies, get a send-home clause in writing: what happens if the man can't do the work on day one, and whether those hours are billed. Our guide on why agencies send journeymen who can't bend pipe covers what to ask before the first man shows.

05Why a number you'll see online doesn't hold up

Most "cost of a bad hire" figures are general HR estimates, and they don't fit a journeyman.

Search this question and the top results are HR and recruiting sites, with one electrician-specific dollar range from a weak source. We couldn't trace it to a study, so we don't use it. You'll also see "30% of first-year earnings" credited to the Department of Labor; we couldn't find a primary source for that either.

The worked example above is more useful than any of those because you can change every line. A short-tenure bad hire on a small crew might run $5,000. A bad foreman hire on a big job, who leads a whole crew in the wrong direction for a month, can be many times the table.

06How to catch him before day one

Most bad journeyman hires are catchable in under an hour of checks.

1. Phone screen with trade questions. Ask what he's bent, what size, what he's terminated, and what the last set of prints he ran looked like. A laborer gets vague fast. Our journeyman phone screen questions are built for this.
2. Look up the card. Check the license on the state board's site while he's on the phone. Make sure it's a journeyman license, not an apprentice or trainee card, and that it's active. Here's how to verify an electrician's license in any state.
3. Run a bench test. Thirty minutes: an offset and a kick, a box offset, a panel termination, and a question off a print. A real J-man won't mind, and you'll know. See our 30-minute electrician skills test.
4. Call one reference who ran work with him. Ask a foreman, not an office manager: "Would you put him on your crew again?"
5. Decide in the first three days. If you hire him and the work isn't there, don't wait three weeks. In the example, catching it on day three instead of day fifteen cuts the lines that grow by the day by about four-fifths.

Hiring where there's no state journeyman license makes step 3 more important, because there's no card to check.

If you'd rather interview hands who've already been asked the trade questions, apply here and we'll see if we can put 5 licensed electricians in front of you in 14 days.

07Run your own number

Take your last bad hire and fill in the same lines.

1. How many hours he worked before you sent him home.
2. What share of a real J-man's work he got done. Be honest; ask the foreman.
3. Foreman hours spent on him.
4. Rework hours and material.
5. Any slip, at your daily time-related cost.
6. What it took to get the next man in.

Add your burden to the labor lines. That's your number. Next time someone says the bench test takes too long, show it to him.

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