What benefits should an open-shop electrician expect?

A good open shop should offer health insurance where the shop pays most of the premium, a 401k or SIMPLE IRA with a match, paid holidays and paid time off. That's what most private employers offer: in March 2025, 72% of private industry workers had access to a retirement plan and 72% to medical coverage, per the BLS. Non-union electrician benefits vary more than rates do, so ask.

Below is what's normal, what the numbers on each benefit mean in dollars, and when a lower rate with benefits beats a higher rate with none.

01What most private employers offer

Most workers in private industry have health, retirement and paid time off available. The BLS Employee Benefits survey for March 2025 breaks it out, including for construction and maintenance jobs.

Narrower still, BLS puts retirement access for construction, extraction, farming, fishing and forestry jobs at 67%. So about one in three hands in that group works without a retirement plan on offer.

Two more numbers from the same survey:

• Retirement type: 70% of private industry workers had access to a defined contribution plan like a 401k. Only 14% had a defined benefit pension.
• Who pays for health: employers paid 80% of the premium for single coverage and 69% for family coverage, on average.

That's the yardstick. A shop that offers health with the shop paying most, a match, and paid holidays is normal. A shop with none of it is behind most employers, not just behind the union.

02Health insurance: what to look at

Health is usually the biggest benefit in dollars, and the premium is only half of it. Look at what the shop pays, what you pay, and what you'd pay if someone gets hurt or sick.

For a yardstick, the KFF 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey found:

• Average total premium: $9,325 a year for single coverage, $26,993 for family
• Average worker share: $1,440 a year single, $6,850 family
• Average deductible for single coverage: $1,886

So for family coverage, the average employer was paying about $20,143 a year ($26,993 minus $6,850, our math). Spread over 2,080 hours, that's about $9.68 an hour that never shows up in your rate.

Questions that matter more than "do you have insurance":

1. What do I pay a month for my coverage level (just me, me and spouse, family)?
2. What's the deductible and the out-of-pocket maximum?
3. When does coverage start? Day one, day 31, day 91?
4. Is there dental and vision, and who pays for it?

On the out-of-pocket cap: HealthCare.gov lists the 2026 limit as no more than $10,600 for an individual or $21,200 for a family. A plan near that ceiling can cost you a lot in a bad year even if the premium is low.

03Retirement: the match and the vesting

A 401k match is free money only if you stay long enough to keep it. Ask for the match and the vesting schedule together.

IEC, the open-shop trade group, gives the same advice in its union and non-union career guide: "Be sure to ask about vesting, match percentages, and out-of-pocket caps."

How it works, per the IRS vesting rules:

• Your own contributions are always 100% yours.
• The shop's match can vest on a schedule. A 3-year cliff means 0% for two years, then 100% at year 3. A 6-year graded schedule goes 20% at year 2, then 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% at year 6.
• SIMPLE IRA and SEP plans must be 100% vested from the start.

What a match is worth at $45 an hour over 2,080 hours ($93,600 a year): a 3% match is $2,808 a year and a 4% match is $3,744 (our math). Leave at year 2 under a 3-year cliff and the match you built up stays with the shop.

04Paid time off and holidays

Paid time off is money. Price it before you compare rates.

At $45 an hour, each paid 8-hour day is worth $360. Ten days PTO plus six holidays is 128 hours, or $5,760 a year (our math). If one shop pays those days and another doesn't, the second shop needs about $2.77 more an hour over 2,080 hours to break even ($5,760 divided by 2,080).

Ask when PTO starts, whether it builds with years, and whether holidays are paid if you're on a job that works through them.

05What one open shop offers, as an example

Packages differ shop to shop. Here's one real one, as IEC published it in a May 2022 member spotlight. It's dated and it's one shop, not a norm.

• A $125 boot allowance per employee each year
• A SIMPLE IRA with a 3% match after two years
• The company pays "at least 50% of any medical plan an employee chooses," family coverage included
• Dental, vision, accident and voluntary life offered on a self-pay basis
• A yearly cost-of-living raise every September
• Apprentice books and tuition paid 100% with grades of B or better
• A paid 8-hour day for a catered Christmas lunch, with a bonus check

The same shop told IEC that people stay "even if the hourly pay rate is not as high as other companies" when they feel the company invests in training them. That's the trade most open-shop hands are weighing: rate against everything else.

06Higher rate with no benefits, or lower rate with benefits?

Run both offers through a year. Here's a worked example, with every number made up for the example.

Shop A: $50 an hour, no benefits. Days off are unpaid. Shop B: $45 an hour. 10 days PTO plus 6 paid holidays (128 hours). 4% 401k match if you put in 4%. Health where you pay $570 a month for family coverage.

You work 2,000 hours a year at either shop. If you need family coverage at Shop A, say you buy it yourself for $1,800 a month.

How Shop B adds up: $45 x 128 is $5,760. The match is 4% of $95,760 in total pay, $3,830. Health is $570 x 12, $6,840. So $90,000 + $5,760 + $3,830 - $6,840 is $92,750.

Two answers from the same two offers:

• If you need family coverage, Shop B is $14,350 a year ahead. Shop A would need about $57.18 an hour to tie ($92,750 plus $21,600, divided by 2,000 hours).
• If you're covered elsewhere, the two are within $410 a year. Then it comes down to steady work, the foreman and the match's vesting.

One more thing tilts toward Shop B: health premiums through work usually come out before taxes, while a plan you buy on your own usually doesn't. Ask a tax pro about your setup.

Run your Pay Check to see what electricians with your license make near you, then plug that rate into Shop A or Shop B. Takes about a minute and your boss never hears about it.

07Other benefits worth asking about

Some benefits don't show up in a survey but matter on the job. Ask about each one so you can put a number on it.

• Truck and fuel card. A take-home truck saves your own gas and wear.
• Tools. Who buys power tools, and is there a hand tool or boot allowance?
• License renewal, CE and code books. Does the shop pay for them?
• Disability and life insurance. Short-term disability matters in a trade where a back or shoulder can keep you off the tools for weeks.
• Paid training and certs. OSHA 30, NFPA 70E, or a master's exam prep.

For older hands, disability coverage and the retirement match carry more weight. Electrical work after 50 covers the rest of that side.

08How it stacks up against a union package

Union packages pay health and retirement per hour into trust funds, set by contract. Open-shop benefits are set by the shop and vary a lot more. To compare one to the other, convert the open-shop benefits into dollars per hour and line them up against the union sheet. How to read a union wage sheet does exactly that, and union vs non-union electrician pay has the BLS earnings for both sides. When you have two open-shop offers in hand, comparing electrician job offers covers per diem, hours and job length too.

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