When a competitor offers your journeyman $2 more an hour

Should you match a competitor offer to your electrician? What $2 an hour costs a year, what replacing him costs, and when to match or let him go.

Updated October 19, 20268 min read7 sources

Photo: Nelson Axigoth, Pexels

A $2 raise costs about $4,668 a year per journeyman with payroll burden, more with overtime. Replacing him costs about a fifth of a year's pay on the lowest published estimate (Center for American Progress), so for a good hand, matching is usually cheaper. Match when he's worth it and the other job is real. Counter with something besides rate when the gap is hours or steady work. Let him go when it's a bluff.

01What $2 an hour costs you per year

Matching $2 costs $4,160 a year in straight-time wages and about $4,668 with burden, before overtime.

Item	Per year
$2 x 2,080 straight-time hours	$4,160
$2 x 1.5 = $3 on 300 OT hours (example)	$900
Total added wages	$5,060
With 12.2% payroll burden	$5,677

The 12.2% is the BLS average for legally required costs in private construction, $4.42 an hour on $36.13 in wages (BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026). Overtime is time and a half on hours over 40 in a workweek, so every $1 of rate is $1.50 on OT hours (DOL Fact Sheet #23). For $1, $3 and $5 on a whole crew, see what a $1 raise really costs an electrical contractor.

Then count the ripple. If he's one of six J-men at the same rate and the other five hear about it, matching all six on straight time is $24,960 in wages, $28,005 burdened. Plan for that before you say yes.

02What replacing him costs

Replacing a journeyman costs more than $2 an hour on every published estimate, though none is specific to construction.

Say he makes $45 an hour. At 2,080 hours that's $93,600 a year.

Center for American Progress (2012): typical (median) cost about 21% of annual pay across all positions except executives and physicians. At $93,600 he's above CAP's $75,000 bracket, so this is the figure to use. On $93,600, about $19,656 (our math).
Gallup (2019): "one-half to two times the employee's annual salary." On $93,600, $46,800 to $187,200 (our math). It's a broad estimate across all kinds of jobs, so treat it as the high end.

Neither counts what a contractor feels most: the weeks the slot sits empty, the OT the rest of the crew works to cover it, and the agency bill if you fill it that way. What it costs when a journeyman quits puts numbers on those.

Next to $5,677 a year, keeping a good hand is usually the cheaper call. The question is whether he's a good hand and whether the offer is real.

03When to match

Match when he's worth the rate on any day, not just the day he asks.

He's a top hand. Runs work from prints with no one over him, could lead a crew, the foreman asks for him by name.
He was under the market anyway. Check his rate against the BLS OEWS numbers for your metro and two or three live ads. The BLS national median for electricians is $30.38 an hour (May 2025), and that number includes apprentices, so a licensed J-man should sit well above it. How to tell if your journeyman pay rate is competitive walks through it.
You can't replace him in time. If the job needs him in the next six weeks and you have no one, the match is cheap insurance.
The other job is real and steady. More on checking that below.

Match on the rate, not with a one-time bonus. The $2 gap shows up in every check. A bonus closes it for a few weeks; then the other offer looks good again.

04When to counter with something besides rate

Counter with something else when the rate isn't really the gap. Ask him what the other job offers besides the number.

Hours. $40 on 5-10s is $2,200 a week. $42 on 5-8s is $1,680. If your job has more OT, show him the weekly check, not the rate.
Schedule. In a survey of nearly 700 IBEW electricians, 4-10s beat 5-8s in every age group. A local hand may take 4-10s over $2.
The next job. If you've got work lined up after this one, tell him where and when.
A truck. A take-home truck saves him his own fuel and wear.
A better foreman or crew. If he's leaving a bad foreman, the money is the excuse.
A path up. Foreman training, a lead on the next job, time toward his master's license.

Then put him on a review schedule. A hand who knows his next raise comes at the six-month review doesn't need a rival's offer to ask for one.

05When to let him walk

Let him walk when the offer is a bluff, when he's not worth the rate, or when matching would reset the whole crew's pay over one man.

An owner on Mike Holt's forum had this exact case in 2006: a hand hired green, under nine months in, two raises already, came in with a $2-more offer from a local contractor and said he'd decide tomorrow. One reply: "That means he doesn't know if the other guy will actually give him that money." Another warned that if he asks "and you give in, it will never stop." Another: "Soon others will know about it and do the same."

The owner let him go. In his update he said the hand had called off 13 times in 9 months. The rate wasn't the real problem.

Signs it's a bluff or a bad match:

He can't tell you who the job is with or what it is.
He asked for the match and a decision by tomorrow in the same breath.
His attendance or work wouldn't earn the raise if he hadn't asked.

06Is the other offer a travel job that ends in six months?

Find out before you match. Some offers are a short job paying more for a few months.

One reply in the same thread: the other contractor "may be busy right now, and just needs a body for a while... as soon as work slows, this guy will be back looking for his job back."

Ask him, without grilling him:

What's the job, and who's the GC?
What phase are they in, and when does it end?
Is there per diem? (If yes, it's a travel job.)
Is there a next job after it, on paper or just talk?
What are the hours?

Then show him the year, not the hour. At $40 for 52 weeks of 40 hours, he makes $83,200. At $42 for a job that ends, with 4 weeks idle before the next one, he makes $80,640 for 48 weeks of work. Two dollars more an hour can be $2,560 less a year.

07Raises on a schedule beat raises on demand

The owners in that thread mostly agreed on one thing: pay a raise because he earned it, not because he asked. Several backed raises on a schedule he knows. One said: "I don't like the surprise raises idea... My suggestion is to establish a regular schedule to review an employee's performance." Another split the difference: $1 now and $1 in a few months, to buy time and see if he's worth it.

One owner paid project bonuses on finished jobs that made the profit they were bid at. That's a good tool for holding a crew to the end of a job. It doesn't fix a rate that's $2 under the market every week.

The cheapest match is the one you never have to make. Review rates twice a year, keep your good hands near the top of the local range, and know who's calling your crew. How to keep your crew from getting poached covers the calls from agencies and GCs, and how to keep good electricians from leaving covers the rest.

If he walks and you need a licensed hand to replace him, apply here and we'll see if we can put 5 licensed electricians in front of you in 14 days.

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FAQFAQs

Should I match a competitor's offer to my electrician?

If he's a hand you'd want at that rate anyway, and the other job is real and steady, usually yes. A $2 raise costs about $4,668 a year with burden, and replacing a journeyman costs more than that on every published estimate. If he's not worth the rate, let him go.

Will he leave anyway if I match?

There's no good data on this. Plenty of owners believe a hand who shops his offer once will do it again. A clear raise schedule makes it less likely, because he knows when the next raise comes and what earns it.

How much does a $2 raise cost per year?

At 2,080 straight-time hours, $4,160 in wages, or about $4,668 with 12.2% payroll burden. Add $3 for every overtime hour. At 300 OT hours a year, the total is about $5,677 burdened.

Can I ask to see the other offer?

You can ask. Many hands won't show it, and that's fair. Ask what the job is, what phase it's in, how long it runs and what the hours are instead. Those answers tell you more than the rate.

Should I counter with a bonus instead of a raise?

Not when the gap is the hourly rate, because that gap comes back every week. A bonus works for holding him to the end of a specific job. For a hand you want for years, match the rate or offer something he values more, like the schedule or a truck.