Gen-X and gen-y: Teaching Them the Business How to bridge the
age gap between older and younger workers in the utility
industry. The utility industry will face its most severe
workforce problem since World War II in the next five to 10
years-a massive loss of plant- and job-specific knowledge
through the retirement of a large portion of today's utility
workforce. This magnitude of attrition has been masked somewhat
by slow and steady, economically driven staffing cutbacks, but
it will accelerate as we move into the second half of this
decade. At the same time, the pool of technical and engineering
talent available to fill critical jobs is insufficient to fill
the job openings at this time. These facts already might affect
safety, reliability, and profitability throughout the industry,
in any of the following ways: - Increases in the duration of
planned and forced outages, as the new hires gradually build
expertise and efficiency in their jobs; - Increased frequencies
of forced outages and accidents caused by