The navy’s ability to build cheap warships capable of shooting down Houthi rebel missiles in the Red Sea depends in part on a 25-year-old worker who used to make parts for garbage trucks.
Lucas Andreini, a welder at Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Marinette, Wisconsin, is one of thousands of young workers nationwide who have received employer-funded training as shipyards struggle to hire and retain employees.
The labor shortage is one of several challenges that have led to delays in ship production and maintenance at a time when the Navy faces increasing global threats. Coupled with shifting defense priorities, last-minute design changes and cost overruns, this situation has led to delays in ship production and maintenance at a time when the Navy faces increasing global threats. put the United States behind China in the number of ships at its disposal — and the gap is widening.
Navy shipbuilding is currently in “a terrible state” — the worst in a quarter-century, said Eric Labs, a longtime naval analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. “I’m alarmed,” he said. “I don’t see a quick and easy way out of this problem. It took us a long time to get here.”
Marinette Marine has signed a contract to build six guided-missile frigates (the Navy’s newest surface warships) with the option to build four more. But according to Labs, it only has enough workers to produce one frigate per year.
Where have all the workers gone?
One of the industry’s biggest problems is the difficulty of hiring and retaining workers for the tough work of building new ships, as aging veterans retire, taking decades of experience with them.
Across the country, shipyards have created training academies and partnered with technical schools to provide workers with the skills they need to build high-tech warships. Submarine builders and the Navy have formed an alliance to promote careers in manufacturing, and shipyards are offering benefits to retain workers once they are hired.
Andreini trained at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College for his job at Marinette. Before that, he worked for several years as a welder on a production line, making components for garbage trucks. He said some of his friends are held back by the stigma that shipbuilding is a “crappy, dangerous work environment.”
But that’s not the reality, he said. His benefits are better than in his previous job, he will receive a pension for the first time and he has the opportunity to acquire even more advanced skills than those he received in his initial training.
Moreover, Andreini said, he feels he is serving his country.
“It makes me happy to be able to do my part and maybe make sure the sailors and some of my friends in service come home safely,” said Andreini, whose father was in the Navy in Vietnam.
Alonie Lake, also a welder, a graduate of the technical college program and a single mother, is happy to have a job with long-term stability — something Marinette’s Navy contract backlog all but guarantees.
Lake, 32, said she believes many young people are interested in the construction trades “and the satisfaction of working with their hands to create tangible results.”
Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro recently stressed the importance of training programs at a Maine community college graduation ceremony. The college has partnered with the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard to teach workers the skills needed to repair nuclear submarines.
“It is incumbent upon all of us to consider how we can best use our talents, and in the case of graduates, their newly acquired skills, to build our great nation for all Americans and defend against today’s threats and challenges,” he said.
Once workers are hired, will they stay?
The Navy is trying to help shipyards ensure that once new workers are trained and hired, they stick around in a tight labor market.
In Wisconsin, part of the $100 million in Navy funding provided to Marinette Marine is being used for retention bonuses at the shipyard, whose employee retention rate in the past has been described by Del Toro as “atrocious.”
The shipyard, which employs more than 2,000 workers, is offering bonuses of up to $10,000 to keep workers, spokesman Eric Dent said. “The labor shortage is definitely an issue and it’s a widespread issue for all shipyards,” he said.
Retention is a concern even for shipyards that have met their targets, including Huntington Ingalls Industries, which makes destroyers and amphibious warships in Mississippi and aircraft carriers and submarines in Virginia.
The company is creating training partnerships with colleges and public schools at all levels. Improvements in Mississippi include more than 1 million square feet (92,900 square meters) of covered workspace, cooling and hydration stations and a second dining hall with a Chick-fil-A. Huntington Ingalls also worked with the Navy and the city of Newport News, Virginia, to build a new parking lot for workers and sailors.
A problem that has been going on for decades
Much of the blame for the current difficulties in U.S. shipbuilding falls on the Navy, which frequently changes its requirements, requests upgrades, and refines designs once shipbuilders begin construction.
This is evident in cost overruns, technological challenges and delays in the construction of the Navy’s new aircraft carrier, the USS Ford; in the shutdown of a gun system for a stealth destroyer program after its rocket-assisted projectiles became too expensive; and in the early retirement of some of the Navy’s lightly armored littoral combat ships, which were prone to breakdowns.
The Navy has vowed to learn from those past experiences with the new frigates it is building at Marinette Marine. Frigates are prized because they are less expensive to produce than larger destroyers but have similar weapons systems.
The Navy chose a ship design already in use by the French and Italian navies instead of starting from scratch. The idea was that 15 percent of the ship would be modernized to meet U.S. Navy specifications, while 85 percent would remain unchanged, reducing costs and speeding up construction.
Instead, the Navy has redesigned 85% of the ship, leading to cost increases and construction delays, said Bryan Clark, an analyst at the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based think tank. Construction of the first Constellation-class warship, which began in August 2022, is now three years behind schedule, with delivery pushed back to 2029.
The final design is not yet complete.
Changing threats and ever-evolving plans
The situation is further complicated by something beyond the Navy’s control: the changing nature of global threats.
Throughout its history, the Navy has had to adapt to various perils, whether it be the Cold War of recent decades or current threats, including war in the Middle East, growing competition from the Chinese and Russian navies, piracy off the coast of Somalia and continued attacks on commercial shipping by Houthi rebels in Yemen.
And that’s not all. Shipyard consolidation and financial uncertainties have disrupted the pace of shipbuilding and hampered investment and long-term planning, says Matthew Paxton of the Shipbuilders Council of America, a national trade association.
“We’ve been dealing with inconsistent shipbuilding plans for years,” Paxton said. “When we finally start to ramp up, the Navy is shocked that it’s lost personnel.”
The Navy says it takes shipbuilding issues seriously.
“The Navy’s role in defending our nation and promoting peace has never been more important,” said Lt. Kyle Hanton, a spokesman for Del Toro’s office. “We continue to work with our industry partners to identify creative solutions to address our shared challenges.”
