Utah experiencing electrician shortage

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah doesn’t have enough electricians to fill the need for all the construction projects in the state.

“Growth in Utah is crazy and it’s only going to get bigger with the Olympics coming and different infrastructure needs,” said Shawn Sawpp, faculty member at Davis Technical College’s Lead Electrical Apprenticeship.

Swapp says he has employers reaching out to him almost daily trying to find recent graduates to hire. But, most of those employers walk away empty-handed because students are already hired before they graduate. 

While this is good news for aspiring electricians, it can be bad news for someone up against a construction deadline. 

Therefore, Utah trade schools have done a lot of work to get into high schools and show students that the electrical industry is a valuable career.

“It’s a good avenue for people to get into and the more we can get into that, the more we can help the shortage, the more we can get your house built just a little bit faster,” Swapp said.

Davis Technical College is seeing the program pick up, but it’s a four-year program. It will take some time to get enough licensed electricians out into the workforce to make a dent in demand. One of the reasons the shortage exists is because so many generations have pushed college degrees over trade careers.

“The mentality of parents not wanting their kids to be construction workers… That’s the underlying problem I think.” said Swapp.

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