While it is hardly a secret that Department of Energy weapons complex sites are badly in need of fresh blood to compensate for a wave of retirements, a recent analysis by a contractor group quantifies the scope of the situation.
The Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG), which holds its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., later this week, projects DOE’s Cold War and Manhattan Project cleanup sites could need to hire about 41,000 new employees over five years.
The workforce projection analysis, a joint project between the contractor’s group and the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM), said the feds and their contractors will need to hire thousands over the next five years, according to a Tuesday press release.
The figure reflects 11,000 operations people, 8,700 radiological technicians, 6,500 electricians, 5,500 project controls analysts, 3,500 project managers, 3,500 mechanics and 2,300 work planners, according to EFCOG.
“Developing, recruiting and retaining the next-generation workforce EM will need across the country will be critical to ensuring our continued progress,” DOE’s nuclear cleanup senior adviser William (Ike) White said in the release.
A link to federal vacancies at DOE and EM can be found here. A site-by-site readout of potential hiring at the cleanup sites from now through fiscal 2028 was posted on the Energy Communities Alliance website and can be viewed here.
For example, the chart indicates the prime for Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina can be expected to hire between 33 and 42 people solely for the operations and maintenance line time from 2023 through 2027.
