The U.S. Electricity Sector Labor Market: Employment and Earnings Trends During a Period of Regulatory Reform

The last ten years have seen many states aggressively pursuing the restructuring of their electric utilities. These reforms were motivated by a number of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) orders which encouraged competitive markets for wholesale electric power . While the effects of these reforms on the product market (and competition) have been widely studied, there is a dearth of research examining the effect of regulatory reform on the U.S. electricity sector's labor market, which employs more than 300,000 highly skilled workers. This heavily unionized workforce is chartered with operating and maintaining the country's critical electrical infrastructure that both families and businesses rely on for their daily activities. This study contributes to our understanding of the effect of electricity deregulation by analyzing the effect these regulatory changes have had on the industries' labor market.