Increasing wages for shipyard workers is the top challenge when attracting and retaining everyone from pipefitters to naval architects, a naval analyst told the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.
For those in the trades – welders, electricians, pipefitters and shipfitters – the working conditions are “hot, cold and dirty” with wages only a couple dollars more than fast food workers, the Congressional Budget Office’s Eric Labs told the HASC.

At the same time, many shipyard workers’ cost-of-living expenses are rising faster than inflation, Labs said. He noted that the COVID-19 pandemic and remote work possibilities saw more highly paid white-collar workers moving from larger cities to more distant areas like Bath, Maine, the home of guided-missile destroyer builder General Dynamics Bath Ironworks.

Labs said that as a result housing costs in Bath are now comparable to Washington’s Northern Virginia suburbs.

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