How to plan manpower for an electrical job you just won

Plan manpower for a new electrical job by turning your estimate's labor hours into a crew curve by phase, splitting it into core crew and flex hands, and starting to recruit 14 to 16 weeks before you need each hand, longer if out-of-state hands need a license. Licensing alone can eat a month: the Oregon Building Codes Division says its license verification, which an Oregon hand needs to take his card to another state, currently takes 4 to 6 weeks. With the 2026 electrician shortage, the hiring itself takes longer than it used to.

01Step 1: Turn your labor hours into a crew curve

Your estimate already has the hours. Spread them across the schedule by phase, and the peak tells you how many hands you need and when.

Here's an example for a 40-week job carrying 16,000 field hours at 40-hour weeks. Your phases and numbers will differ.

Hours are crew x weeks x 40. The average crew is 10 (16,000 hours over 40 weeks at 40 hours), but the peak is 14, for 8 weeks. If you staff to the average, you're 4 hands short at the worst possible time: when the gear lands and the GC wants it energized.

Mark two things on the curve:

1. The ramp. Rough-in jumps from 4 to 12 hands. That's 8 hires or transfers before week 7.
2. The peak. Gear and feeders need 14. That's where you'll need flex hands.

02Step 2: Split it into core crew and flex

Core crew is who you'd keep after the job. Flex is who you add for the peak.

In the example, say you have 8 hands you'd keep no matter what. Then:

• Weeks 1 to 6 you're over (4 needed, 8 on hand). Put the extra 4 on other work or start rough-in early where the GC allows it.
• Weeks 7 to 20 you need 4 more (12 needed).
• Weeks 21 to 28 you need 6 more (14 needed).
• Weeks 29 to 36 you need 2 more (10 needed).
• Weeks 37 to 40 you're back over.

Fill the long gap with direct hires you can keep for the next job: 4 hands from week 7, two of whom carry on through week 36. Fill the short spike (2 more for weeks 21 to 28) with OT, travelers or a staffing agency as a backstop. Be honest with every hand about which group he's in. Telling a flex hand he's core and laying him off at week 29 is how a shop gets a reputation for short-terming.

03Step 3: Count backward from the day you need them

Recruiting starts long before the hand shows up, and for a peak 20 weeks out, now is not too early.

This is an example timeline for one hire. Stretch it if the market's tight or the hand has to move his license.

Why so long? The best journeymen already have jobs. You're selling a move to a man who doesn't need one, and he won't walk out mid-week. And in a tight year, the first offer usually wins.

04Step 4: Build in licensing lead time for out-of-state hands

If the job is in a state that licenses journeymen and your hands are licensed somewhere else, the license is often the longest step.

• Processing takes weeks. Oregon's Building Codes Division quotes 4 to 6 weeks to process a license verification request, the form an Oregon hand needs when he applies in another state.
• Many states want the home license held a while. Utah's Division of Professional Licensing, for example, says an applicant by endorsement "must have held the license type indicated on the map for at least one year," active and in good standing, plus an official verification from the home board. A hand who just topped out can't move his card yet.
• Your company may need its own license. Some states license the contracting company or a qualifier on top of the hands.

Rules change. Check the state board for every state on your job as of 2026 before you count on a hand, and confirm with the board. Our guides on out-of-state journeyman reciprocity and staffing a job in a state with no crew cover the details.

05Step 5: Check your apprentice ratio before you count helpers

Apprentices stretch a crew, but state ratio rules cap how many you can field per journeyman.

These are three states' rules as of 2026, from the statutes. Confirm with each state board before you plan around them.

The math in the last column is ours. On a Davis-Bacon job, there's a second limit: apprentices over the program's ratio "must be paid not less than the applicable wage rate on the wage determination for the work actually performed" (29 CFR 5.5). See apprentice to journeyman ratio rules by state for more states.

The practical rule: your journeyman count sets your ceiling. Short on J-men means you're short on apprentices too.

06Step 6: Show the GC your manpower plan while you're still hiring

A GC can work with a plan that has open seats. He can't work with silence.

Put this on one page:

1. The crew curve by phase, with peak headcount and dates.
2. Who's committed: core crew count and foreman by name if he's agreed. Never list names you don't have.
3. Open seats with the date each is needed and its status (ad live, interviewing, offer out, license pending).
4. Licensing status for every out-of-state hand.
5. Your backstop if a seat isn't filled by its date: OT plan, a scope you'd sub out, or agency hands for the spike.

Update it every two weeks until the peak is staffed. A GC who sees seats filling on schedule stops calling. One who finds out at the gear set doesn't.

07Should you bid a job when you're already short?

Sometimes. Bid it if your core crew covers the curve outside the peak and you have a real plan for the peak gap, with dates.

Our rule of thumb, not a law:

• Bid it if your core crew covers at least two-thirds of the peak, the start date leaves 12 or more weeks to recruit, and your price includes OT and per diem for the gap.
• Bid it carefully if you'd need to hire more than a third of the peak. Price the risk, and talk to the GC about the schedule before you commit.
• Pass, or team up, if the job starts in under 8 weeks and you'd need out-of-state hands with licenses not yet moving.

Passing on bids costs real money, and so does winning one you can't man. Run both numbers before you decide. Our post on what a short-handed crew really costs has the math. To fill the open seats, start with where to find journeyman electricians.

If you just won a job and you're short for the ramp, apply here and we'll see if we can put 5 licensed electricians in front of you in 14 days.

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