Why staffing agencies send journeymen who can't bend pipe

Staffing agencies send "journeymen" who can't bend pipe because most screen on the card a hand says he holds, not on what he can do with a bender, and in states with no statewide journeyman card there's often nothing to check at all. The fix is three checks you run or demand yourself: look up the license class, give a short practical, and write a send-home and refund clause into the agreement.

01What contractors are actually getting

Hands billed as journeymen who work like helpers, and apprentice-card holders billed at journeyman rates.

One national electrical contractor put it plainly on a call with us. On one job they went through four agencies. What showed up:

"So-called journeymen that can't bend conduit... They're basically laborers, and we don't have the time nor the bandwidth to be able to deal with people like that."

Some, they said, "would have apprentice licenses and just weren't able to do the normal duties as a journeyman." They told us one agency billed about $80 to $87.50 an hour, plus per diem, for apprentices.

What they wanted wasn't fancy. Five to seven years in, able to run raceway, pull wire and terminate. "We should be able to give the prints to a journeyman and say, this goes from point A to point B. Knock it out."

That's the gap. You're paying for a man you can hand prints to. You're getting a man you have to babysit. For the full cost of renting hands vs hiring them, see staffing agency vs direct hire for electricians.

02Why it keeps happening

The agency gets paid for hours on your job, and the fastest screen is taking a man's word for his card.

The agency is paid to fill the order

An agency earns its markup on every hour its hand bills you. A slot left open earns nothing. That doesn't make every agency careless, but it means speed wins when a contractor calls on Monday needing six hands by Wednesday. The screen gets shorter as the order gets more urgent.

The card gets claimed, not checked

A license lookup takes a few minutes. Checking the class is the step that gets skipped. A state lookup can show journeyman, apprentice or trainee, residential, or a limited specialty license, and they aren't the same man on a commercial job. If nobody pulls the record and reads the class, an apprentice card holder can be sent as a journeyman, which is what that contractor told us happened.

Some states have no journeyman card to check

In some states, the state doesn't license individual journeymen at all. North Carolina's electrical board, for example, licenses contracting businesses in Limited, Intermediate and Unlimited classes, each through a qualified individual. Its licensing page lists no journeyman card. Several other states license only contractors, or leave journeyman cards to cities and counties.

In those places, "journeyman" on a resume means whatever the man says it means. Nobody checked it because there's no state record to check. Hiring electricians in states with no journeyman license covers how to screen there.

A card proves a test, not a bend

Even a real card doesn't prove he can run your work. The BLS says most states require electricians "to pass a test and be licensed." What that test covers varies by state, so find out what yours covers. A written code exam proves a man can find the answer in the book. It doesn't prove he can bend a back-to-back or land a 3-phase feeder without being shown.

Some agencies do test. Ask what.

Testing isn't new. Back in 2006, EC&M profiled an electrical staffing firm that gave mechanical tests to less experienced applicants "to see if they have the aptitude to mount conduit." NCCER, the construction training group, offers a journey-level Commercial Electrician assessment. Its assessments pair knowledge tests with performance verifications, and it pitches them to "contractors and owners verifying journey-level competency before deployment."

So when an agency says its hands are screened, ask what the screen was, who ran it, and whether you can see the result.

03What one so-called journeyman costs you

A bad hand costs you the hours you paid for, your foreman's time, and the rework, and the slot is still empty when he's gone.

Example only. Say the agency bills $80 an hour and he works three 10-hour days before you send him home:

That's before any schedule slip, and before you pay for the next man's first week. Now say it's an apprentice billed as a journeyman for two 50-hour weeks at $87.50. That's $8,750 billed for work you'd have priced at an apprentice rate, if you'd known.

What a bad hire costs across a whole job is laid out in what a bad journeyman hire costs an electrical contractor.

04The first hour on site

If a hand is already on his way, you can still find out fast.

• Check his card in the truck. Name, number, class, status and expiration against the state lookup. Screenshot it with the date.
• Give him a real task. An offset and a 90 on a stick of 1/2" EMT to marks you set. A J-man does it without his phone. A laborer won't know the multiplier.
• Hand him a print. Ask what feeds the panel and where the homerun goes. You'll know in two minutes.

05The checks to demand from any agency

Put these in writing before the first man travels, not after the third one goes home.

1. License number, issuing state and class for every hand, before he's sent. Then run the lookup yourself. Minnesota's DLI lookup, for example, lets you check a license's status and any enforcement actions. Washington's L&I lets you look up any tradesperson by name or license. Read the class, not just the name. How to verify an electrician's license in any state has the board for each state.
2. A short practical, run by the agency or by you. Thirty minutes covers a bend, a termination, a print and a troubleshooting fault. Ask the agency to run it and send you the score sheet, or run a 30-minute bench test yourself on day one. A phone screen first saves a trip: these phone screen questions that catch a laborer take ten minutes.
3. A send-home clause. Robert Half's public staffing terms don't charge for the first eight hours if you're not satisfied, as long as it can send a replacement. Ask for at least that. For a field hand, push for the first full day, and a replacement within a set number of business days.
4. A refund when the class doesn't match. If the lookup shows an apprentice, trainee or limited license and he was billed as a journeyman, every hour gets rebilled at the apprentice rate or refunded. Write the apprentice bill rate into the agreement so there's no argument about the number.
5. Your skills spec on the order. Not "licensed journeyman." Say what the job needs: years in the trade, raceway, pulling and terminating, running work from prints, the voltage and gear you're setting. If he can't do what's on the order, he goes home under clause 3.
6. The agency's screen results, in writing. What it tested, who tested him, and when. "He's been screened" isn't an answer.

Put all six next to the rest of your terms on the electrical staffing agreement checklist.

If you'd rather interview licensed journeymen yourself and put the ones who pass on your payroll, apply here and we'll see if we can put 5 licensed electricians in front of you in 14 days.

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