How to Compare a Trade Job Offer Beyond the Hourly Rate

Scotty Wristen owns WE Electric in Abilene, Texas, and he lost five workers to the data centers going up around town. He can pay $20 an hour. The data centers pay $35, plus overtime and per diem, he told The Texas Tribune in April 2026. "Some of them were guys that I've had for eight years, five years," Wristen says. "They came, they got trained, and they left to go out there."

Over a 40-hour week, that $15 difference comes to $600 before tax.

A written offer also spells out the hours in a week, who pays for lodging and travel, when health coverage starts and how long the project is expected to run. For a baseline, the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median electrician wage at $63,190 a year, or $30.38 an hour, for May 2025. Its handbook page on electricians says, "Overtime is common."

Price a short week first

Build the comparison from the written offer. All employees in construction averaged 38.9 hours a week in August 2025 and 39.5 in August 2026, a preliminary figure, according to BLS Table B-2. A late switchgear delivery or a rained-out slab pour can take a day off any week. Run the numbers on a 32-hour week too, and see whether the job still covers lodging.

Overtime pay is set by law and by contract. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, covered employees get at least time and a half after 40 hours in a workweek. A 50-hour week followed by a 30-hour week still owes 10 hours of overtime, because, in the words of DOL Fact Sheet 23 (revised October 2019), "Averaging of hours over two or more weeks is not permitted." Federal law sets no premium for Saturdays, Sundays or holidays as such. California adds daily overtime after 8 hours and double time after 12, per the state Labor Commissioner's overtime FAQ.

A union agreement can go further. The IBEW Local 48 commercial/industrial agreement in Portland, Oregon, lets the employer switch to four 10-hour days with 48 hours' notice to the union and employees. After 10 hours in a day it pays time and a half, and Sundays and holidays pay double. Section 3.09 covers show-up pay. Workers ordered to report and then not put to work get two hours' wages, unless it was their own fault or the conditions were beyond the employer's control.

Davis-Bacon work has its own rule. DOL Fact Sheet 66E (October 2023) lets the employer pay the fringe benefit portion of the prevailing wage as cash, and the extra half-time for overtime is not owed on that cash-in-lieu portion. The fact sheet's own example is a $27.00 basic hourly rate plus $14.00 in fringes, which can be paid as $41.00 an hour in cash. By our arithmetic, an overtime hour on those numbers comes to $54.50, while a job paying a plain $41.00 regular rate owes $61.50.

Per diem goes in its own column

The IRS dealt with relabeled pay in Revenue Ruling 2012-25. In one of its examples, a staffing company paid nurses the same gross amount per hour whether or not an assignment took them away from home. When they traveled, it called part of that pay a tax-free per diem. The ruling says those payments are "merely recharacterized wages." Ask whether your total hourly pay would drop if you lived next door to the job. If it would not, the per diem is probably taxable wages.

The overtime regulations reach the same result. Under 29 CFR 778.217(c)(1), only the actual or reasonably approximate expense stays out of the regular rate, and if a reimbursement is "disproportionately large," the excess goes back in. Paragraph (c)(2) treats amounts at or below the federal travel or IRS per diem rates as reasonable per se.

Those rates change on Oct. 1, 2026. IRS Notice 2026-60 sets the high-low rates at $329 a day for high-cost localities and $230 elsewhere in the continental U.S., up from $319 and $225 under Notice 2025-54. The GSA's FY 2027 bulletin raises standard lodging from $110 to $113 a night and keeps meals and incidentals at $68.

Job length changes the tax picture. IRS Publication 463 treats an assignment as indefinite if it is "realistically expected to last for more than 1 year," and living allowances on an indefinite assignment count as income. Its Example 3 is a construction worker from Los Angeles on a Fresno job expected to last 9 months; after 8 months he is asked to stay 7 more, for 15 in total, and only the first 8 months count as travel away from home. After that, Fresno is his tax home, and a per diem paid for living there is taxable income. A worker with no main place of work and no place he regularly lives is an itinerant in IRS terms, and his tax home is wherever he works. This is general information, not tax or legal advice, so check your own case with a CPA, an enrolled agent or a lawyer. Our guide to writing a per diem policy people can follow covers the employer side.

Lodging near a big build

Near Meta's data center site in Richland Parish, Louisiana, the Antley Pines mobile home park rents furnished four-bedroom, two-bathroom homes for an average of $3,000 a month with utilities, co-founder Angel Crawford told Business Insider in September. "Before Meta arrived, an unfurnished house without utilities in the same area would probably go for around $1,200 to $1,500 a month," Crawford says. "All the homes were secured by deposits from Meta workers before we even got them into the park."

Abilene looks similar. At the Cottages at the Frontier RV Park east of town, each 399-square-foot cottage will rent for $1,850 a month, Kacee Thompson, chief operating officer of Frontier Cottages Development LLC, told the West Texas Tribune in March.

Count the drive in minutes.

Her tenants tell her that "if they live in Dallas and it's 30 miles to work, it takes about 30 minutes," Crawford says. "Well, in rural areas, 30 miles could take 60 minutes because of all the back roads and little towns you have to go through." For trips home, the IRS business mileage rate rose to 76 cents a mile on July 1, 2026, under Announcement 2026-11 in Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-29, so a 600-mile round trip works out to $456 at that rate.

Most W-2 employees cannot deduct travel costs they pay themselves. Publication 463 limits Form 2106 to Armed Forces reservists, qualified performing artists, fee-basis state or local government officials and employees with impairment-related work expenses, so lodging you cover comes out of after-tax pay. Normal work boots are usually on you, too, under 29 CFR 1926.95(d)(4)(i). Required PPE is different. Paragraph (d)(1) says protective equipment used to comply with the construction standards "shall be provided by the employer at no cost to employees," and (d)(2) exempts non-specialty safety-toe footwear and prescription safety eyewear that the employer lets you wear off the job site.

A projected run can stop before it starts

In April 2025 Microsoft paused about $1 billion in planned data centers at three sites in Licking County, Ohio, ENR reported. The first project, on the New Albany site, was planned as a $420 million, 245,000-square-foot data center on 197 acres, with Ames Construction as general contractor and completion slated for 2027. Ames had already started clearing the property in November and December 2024.

Hebron, one of the three paused sites, is now under construction. Microsoft's Hebron update page estimated mass grading from February to November 2026, with Ames again as general contractor. Permitted hours there are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, plus Saturdays and occasional Sundays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the Village of Hebron reviews and approves all work schedules. By our count, those limits allow at most 69 hours in a six-day week.

Read the cancellation and demobilization terms before you sign a lease. Ask in writing who pays for the trip home if the job ends early.

Benefits come with a start date

In March 2026, 75 percent of private-industry workers in construction, extraction, farming, fishing and forestry occupations had access to an employer medical plan and 53 percent took part, according to BLS benefits Table 2. Those in single coverage paid 20 percent of the premium, per Table 3. The date matters as much as the plan. Federal rules cap a group health plan's waiting period at 90 days once you are otherwise eligible, and a 2014 final rule allows an orientation period of up to one month before that 90-day clock starts. At the maximum, a 12-week assignment ends before coverage begins.

The schedule and the next job belong in the comparison

Meta's workers in Richland Parish "work six to seven days a week and 12-plus hours a day," Crawford says. "They leave around 4:30 in the morning, and they don't come home until 7 at night."

Mindy Bates, human resources director at Ace Electric in Valdosta, Georgia, spoke at an AGC webinar that Construction Dive covered in September. Her company runs some data center work with local teams and some with travel teams. "The travel team data center work does have the highest turnover particularly in the field and the electricians and helpers level," Bates says.

Katie Lane, chief talent officer at Clayco, spoke on an Aug. 26, 2026 panel that Construction Dive also covered. "Historically, it was here's compensation, here's benefits, welcome to the club," Lane says. "Now, we're having to solve for many other aspects that might be sweetening the pot for people." On the same panel, Brian Schneider, talent acquisition manager at DPR Construction, listed what DPR can offer travelers, including living allowances or per diems, project incentives, mobilization bonuses, travel stipends and a salary increase. "Traveling can be difficult," Schneider says.

Check whether your license crosses the state line, too. With a new Ohio agreement announced June 5, 2026, TDLR lists master electrician reciprocity with seven states and journeyman reciprocity with 10. Our note on licenses and reciprocity lists what to confirm before you travel.

Parker Worth, a journeyman wireman and substation technician based in Marysville, Washington, was on a new job every three to six months when T&D World interviewed him in 2022. "I've lived out of a hotel more than I've lived at my own house for the past 10 years," Worth says. On money against time at home, he says, "It's different for everybody."

Kelly Steber, superintendent of substation operations at PAR Western Line Construction, had spent nearly two-thirds of his career on the road since he entered the line trade in 1987, T&D World reported in September 2022. He lives in an RV near the job, which he calls "my second home with taillights," and he sees his family in Oregon about every other weekend. He calls his wife for an hour every night when he leaves the job site.

Sources

1. Data center boom strains Texas homebuilders' need for electricians, Sneha Dey, The Texas Tribune, April 28, 2026.
2. Occupational Outlook Handbook: Electricians, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, last modified August 27, 2026.
3. Employment Situation, Table B-2: Average weekly hours and overtime of all employees on private nonfarm payrolls by industry sector, seasonally adjusted, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, September 4, 2026.
4. Fact Sheet #23: Overtime Pay Requirements of the FLSA, U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division, revised October 2019.
5. Overtime (FAQ), California Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, accessed September 29, 2026.
6. Commercial/Industrial Agreement, January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2026, IBEW Local 48 and NECA Oregon-Columbia Chapter.
7. Fact Sheet #66E: The Davis-Bacon and Related Acts, Compliance with Fringe Benefit Requirements, U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division, October 2023.
8. Internal Revenue Bulletin 2012-37 (Rev. Rul. 2012-25), Internal Revenue Service, September 10, 2012.
9. 29 CFR 778.217, Reimbursement for expenses, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, accessed September 29, 2026.
10. Notice 2026-60, 2026-2027 Special Per Diem Rates, Internal Revenue Service, September 2026.
11. Notice 2025-54, 2025-2026 Special Per Diem Rates, Internal Revenue Service, 2025.
12. GSA Per Diem Bulletin FTR 27-01, U.S. General Services Administration, August 18, 2026.
13. Publication 463 (2025), Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses, Internal Revenue Service, accessed September 29, 2026.
14. The Meta data center in Louisiana is creating a housing boom, Lauren Edmonds, Business Insider via Yahoo News, September 27, 2026.
15. Frontier Cottages targets data center housing crunch east of Abilene, Bruce Campbell, West Texas Tribune, March 30, 2026.
16. Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-29 (Announcement 2026-11), Internal Revenue Service, July 13, 2026.
17. 29 CFR 1926.95, Criteria for personal protective equipment, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, accessed September 29, 2026.
18. Microsoft Hits Pause Button on $1B in Data Centers in Ohio, Annemarie Mannion, Engineering News-Record, April 10, 2025.
19. Hebron datacenter construction update, Microsoft Local, accessed September 29, 2026.
20. Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2026, Table 2: Medical care benefits: Access, participation, and take-up rates, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, September 25, 2026.
21. Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2026, Table 3: Medical plans: Share of premiums paid by employer and employee for single coverage, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, September 25, 2026.
22. Ninety-Day Waiting Period Limitation, final rules, Federal Register, Vol. 79, No. 122, June 25, 2014.
23. Labor squeeze prompts revised construction workforce strategies, Sebastian Obando, Construction Dive, September 14, 2026.
24. 'It's about taking care of people': How top contractors staff data center jobs, Sebastian Obando, Construction Dive, September 2, 2026.
25. Texas Expands Electrician Reciprocity with Ohio to Support Skilled Workforce and Economic Growth, Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, June 5, 2026.
26. Travelers in the Line Trade: Part 2, Amy Fischbach, T&D World, October 24, 2022.
27. Travelers in the Line Trade, Amy Fischbach, T&D World, September 8, 2022.

Featured image: an electrician plans the day's work in a mechanical room. Photo by PEO ACWA, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, cropped.