Related Reading: The Hidden Cost of Slow Hiring | Blue Collar Staffing Agency vs DIY Hiring

Most contractors budget for the wage and nothing else. Then they wonder why a hire that looked like a $60,000 decision felt like a lot more.

Here is the honest way to price a skilled trades hire. Start with the wage floor, then add the four costs that never show up on the offer letter.

Start With the Real Wage Floor

These are national median annual wages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2024. Median means half the workers in that trade earn more. In tight metros, experienced techs are above these numbers, not at them.

• Elevator and escalator installer: $106,580
• Electrical power-line installer: $92,560
• Aircraft mechanic: $79,140
• Industrial machinery mechanic: $63,760
• Plumber, pipefitter, steamfitter: $62,970
• Ironworker: $62,700
• Electrician: $62,350
• Sheet metal worker: $60,850
• HVAC mechanic and installer: $59,810
• Carpenter: $59,310
• Construction equipment operator: $58,320
• Heavy and tractor-trailer driver: $57,440
• Construction laborer: $46,050

Then Add What the Offer Letter Does Not Show

1. The Loaded Cost of Employment

Payroll taxes, workers comp, health coverage, retirement match, vehicle, fuel, phone, and tools. In the trades, workers comp alone can move hard depending on your classification codes and claim history.

Run your own multiplier here rather than trusting a rule of thumb. Pull last year’s total labor spend, divide by total base wages paid, and you have your real number instead of somebody else’s average.

2. The Cost of Finding Them

Job board spend, sponsored posts, screening time, interview hours, background checks, drug testing, and the hours your service manager spends on hiring instead of running work.

That last one gets skipped constantly. If a manager billing at $85 an hour spends 20 hours on a hire, that is real money whether or not it appears in a recruiting line item.

3. The Cost of the Seat Sitting Empty

This is usually the largest number and the one nobody tracks.

Take your average revenue per tech per day. Multiply by the days that seat stays open. A truck that would have run five calls a day for 60 days is not a staffing inconvenience, it is a revenue line you already lost.

Add the jobs you turned down, the overtime you paid the crew covering, and the customers who called someone else.

4. The Cost of Getting It Wrong

A bad hire in the trades is not just a wasted salary. It is callbacks, warranty work, damaged customer relationships, a safety exposure, and the ramp time you spent training someone who left.

Then you restart the whole process and pay every cost above a second time.

Why Hiring Costs Keep Climbing

Demand is not softening. BLS projects industrial machinery mechanics up 16% through 2034, electricians up 9%, and HVAC up 8% with roughly 40,100 openings a year. Most of those openings come from retirements, not new positions.

More employers competing for a shrinking pool of experienced techs means longer time to fill and higher wage floors. The cost of an empty seat rises with it.

The Number That Actually Matters

Cost per hire is the wrong metric to optimize on its own. Cost per day the seat stays empty is the one that decides your year.

Calculate that number for your shop before your next opening. Most owners find that speed is worth more than savings, and it changes how they hire.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook. Wages are national medians, May 2024. Growth reflects 2024-2034 projections.