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> Scotty Wristen, the owner of WE Electric in Abilene, lost five workers to the data centers. He can only afford to pay employees $20 an hour. Data centers bei
by quickthrowman 5mo ago
> Scotty Wristen, the owner of WE Electric in Abilene, lost five workers to the data centers. He can only afford to pay employees $20 an hour.
Data centers being able to pay more is only part of it, $20/hr is a ridiculous wage for an electrician.
My union electricians in a metro area of 3M make $57/hr in wages and around $43 in fringe benefits and they’re receiving a 4% raise on Friday. We have plenty of electricians here since they’re compensated well.
- profdevloper 5mo agoSounds like he needs to be out of business
- zdragnar 5mo agoAbilene is nothing like a metro area of 3 million people. $20/hour is a bit low, but union journeymen were making $33/hour in San Antonio, so I don't know that $20 is too extreme.
- quickthrowman 5mo ago$33/hr seems low, but considering the median income in my metro area ($100k) is 55-60% higher than San Antonio ($65k), it about lines up with the higher journeyman wage here compared to the median income of just under $100k. I thought Texas had higher wages than that overall, guess I was wrong. $20/hr for a non-union residential electrician isn’t unreasonable then, strangely enough.
- lotsofpulp 5mo agoSome people need higher pay to offset the opportunity costs of living in a very rural area.
- fred_is_fred 5mo agoScotty probably loves capitalism until it affects him personally.