How to compare two electrician job offers: the whole check

To compare electrician job offers, put both on one sheet and work out what's left each week and over the length of the job: rate times the hours they'll guarantee, OT, per diem with its unit, minus road costs, plus benefits. In our example, a $42 travel offer beats a $45 local one by about $27,000 over six months, but only if the 60-hour weeks are real. At 40 hours it loses by $8,500.

Rate is the number everybody quotes. It's the least useful number on its own.

01The eight things in the whole check

Every offer has eight parts. Get all eight for both offers before you do any math.

1. Rate. Straight-time hourly.
2. Hours, and whether they're guaranteed. "We're running 6-10s" and "you'll get 60 hours" aren't the same promise.
3. Overtime rules. Federal law is time and a half over 40 hours in a workweek, per DOL Fact Sheet #23. Some states and union agreements add daily OT or double time.
4. Per diem, with its unit. Amount, per day or per week, 7 days or days worked, and whether you lose it for a missed day.
5. Job length and the next job. How many weeks, what phase, and what the shop has lined up after.
6. Benefits. What health costs you, when it starts, the 401k match and its vesting, paid days off.
7. Truck and tools. Take-home truck and fuel card, or your truck and your gas. Who buys power tools.
8. The foreman. Who runs the crew, whether material is on site, and how the crew is staffed.

If an offer won't give you a straight answer on one of these, that's an answer too. Questions to ask an electrical contractor before you take the job has the exact wording.

02Two offers, side by side

Here are two example offers. Neither is real. The method is what matters.

Now the weekly math. For Offer B, the road costs are examples: a room at $65 a night for 7 nights ($455), $20 a day in extra food ($140), and a trip home every other weekend at about $100 in gas ($50 a week). That's $645 a week. For Offer A, the take-home truck saves you about $60 a week in gas, so it's counted as $60.

How it adds up:

• Offer A: 40 hours x $45 is $1,800, plus $60 in gas you don't spend.
• Offer B at 60 hours: 40 x $42 is $1,680. 20 OT hours x $63 is $1,260. Wages $2,940. Per diem $110 x 6 days is $660. Minus $645 is $2,955.
• Offer B at 40 hours: 40 x $42 is $1,680. Per diem $110 x 5 days is $550. Minus $645 is $1,585.

Run your Pay Check to see what electricians with your license make near you, so you know whether either rate is good before you pick between them. Takes about a minute and your boss never hears about it.

03Over the length of the job

Six months is about 26 weeks, Offer B's length. Add in what health costs you over that time.

• Offer A health: $250 x 6 months is $1,500.
• Offer B health: say three months on your own at $600 a month before day 91 ($1,800), then $350 x 3 ($1,050). That's $2,850.

Offer A also builds a 4% match: 4% of $46,800 in wages is $1,872 over the six months. It's only yours if you stay until it vests, so it's left out of the total. Count it if you plan to stay.

What the table says:

• If Offer B really runs 60 hours for 26 weeks, it's about $27,120 ahead.
• If Offer B drops to 40 hours, Offer A is about $8,500 ahead, and still running when B ends.
• The tipping point is around 45 hours a week. At 5 days and 45 hours, B leaves $1,900 a week against A's $1,860. At 44 hours it leaves $1,837.

So the question to settle on Offer B is whether the 60 hours are real and how long they last. The $3 on the rate matters less.

04Guaranteed hours decide most offers

Most of the money in a travel or plant offer is overtime. If the hours aren't guaranteed, the offer is a guess.

Ask how many hours the crew has actually worked the last four weeks, not what the schedule says. Ask whether OT gets cut when the job falls behind on material or the GC slows down. And ask what happens on rain days or when the area isn't ready.

Run Offer B at 50 hours too. In the example it leaves $2,215 a week (40 x $42, plus 10 OT hours x $63, plus $550 per diem, minus $645), still ahead of A, but $740 a week less than at 60.

05Per diem: get the unit

Per diem with no unit can mean anything. $110 a day for 7 days is $770 a week. $110 a day worked on 5 days is $550. That's $220 a week, or $5,720 over 26 weeks, from one word.

Three more things to pin down:

• Do you lose the day's per diem if you miss a day, or the whole week?
• Is it paid with the check, or reimbursed later?
• Is it at or under the federal rate? IRS Publication 463 says a travel allowance at or below the federal rate, paid under an accountable plan while you're working away from your tax home, isn't counted as wages. That's why it's worth more than the same money in your rate.

If one offer is travel and one is local, the travel vs local whole-check math goes deeper on road costs and weeks worked.

06Job length and the next job

How long the work lasts swings the math more than the rate. A job that ends in 10 weeks with a 6-week gap after it can pay less over the year than a lower rate that runs all year.

Ask what phase the job is in, how big the crew will get, and when it starts to shrink. Ask what the shop has lined up after. A shop that moves hands to the next job is worth more than one that lets them go at the end.

One national electrical contractor told us their own job "doesn't pay enough to hold these guys down to where they can stay long term until the job's over." When a shop's rate can't hold its crew, the crew turns over and the end dates move. How to tell if an electrical job will last has the signs to look for before you go.

07Benefits: put a dollar number on each one

Benefits are part of the check. They just don't show up on the stub. Convert each one to dollars a year so it can sit in the same column as the wages.

• Health: what you'd pay a month, times 12. Add what you'd pay for coverage while you wait for it to start.
• Retirement match: the match percentage times your yearly wages, but only if you'll stay long enough to vest.
• Paid days off: days times 8 hours times your rate.

For scale: in March 2025, employers paid on average 80% of the premium for single coverage and 69% for family coverage, per the BLS Employee Benefits survey. An offer where you pay most of the premium is behind that.

08Truck, tools and the gas you don't buy

A take-home truck and fuel card is real money. If you drive 40 miles a day round trip to the shop or job, five days a week, that's 200 miles a week of your own gas and wear you don't spend.

Tools work the same way. If one shop buys power tools and the other expects you to show up with a hammer drill, a band saw and a bender, count what you'd spend.

09The foreman: what you can't put in a table

A good foreman makes 60 hours go by. A bad one makes 40 feel long, and can be why a job runs over or runs short.

Ask the shop:

• Who's the foreman, and how long has he run crews for them?
• How many on the crew, and how many are apprentices or helpers?
• Is material on site, and who handles it?
• Can I talk to someone on the crew?

If you get vague answers on the foreman and the crew, weigh that as much as a dollar or two on the rate. The warning signs at an electrical company lists the rest.

10Agency offer vs direct offer

If one offer comes from a staffing agency and one comes straight from the contractor, compare them the same way, then ask a few more questions: who signs your check, whether you'd be hired on, and what happens when the agency's contract on that job ends. BLS puts the median for electricians in employment services at $57,760 a year, against $61,570 for those working for electrical contractors (May 2025, per the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook). Agency vs direct hire for electricians covers the rest.

11Before you say yes

Once one offer wins on paper, check three more things.

1. Is the move worth it at all? A small raise can disappear once you count vesting, PTO and seniority. Should you switch electrical companies for $3 more an hour runs that math.
2. Do you know your market number? If both offers are low for your license and area, the right move may be a third offer. What your electrician license is worth shows how to find it.
3. Is the start date firm, and does health start on time? Don't give notice until the new shop confirms both.

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