For Ray Steen, the vice president of human resources at Bath Iron Works, there’s no shortage of qualified engineers and factory workers to operate the iconic shipyard. Finding a place for them to live, however, is a different story, especially for those who need to relocate from elsewhere.

“We have seen that a lot of folks have struggled with finding housing in Maine,” he said.

Data from Bath Iron Works shows the shipyard is having difficulty retaining as much as a quarter of its relocating new hires due to a lack of available housing 

BIW isn’t alone in its struggle. In York County, home to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, the data suggests a shortage of housing for workers there, too.

“It’s an acute problem, particularly in southern York County,” said Stephanie Carver, transportation director at the Southern Maine Planning and Development Commission.

According to Steen, throughout 2021 and 2022, Bath Iron Works hired 400 people who needed to relocate, either within Maine or from out of state. 

According to a November 2022 report from the University of Southern Maine analyzing the shipyard’s economic impact, by April 2022, entry-level production worker pay had risen to $23.50 per hour which, assuming a 2,000-hour work year, amounts to an annual income of approximately $47,000. 

The report showed wages for production workers could be as high as $35 an hour, adding up to an annual income of approximately $70,000. A spokesperson for the shipyard noted incomes could be higher once overtime is factored in.

Despite this, Steen said, 100 of the relocating workers hired in 2021 and 2022, or 25%, eventually had to quit their jobs at the shipyard because they couldn’t find a home in the area they could afford. 

Steen added that in the same two years there were at least 80 more workers the shipyard wanted to hire but the job offers were rejected either entirely or largely because they would need to relocate and couldn’t find housing.

“There’s definitely good middle-class jobs (but) in that range, the housing in Maine, it’s just out of reach for people in that group,” he said.

In Kittery, data on worker retention directly from Portsmouth Naval Shipyard was not available, but a spokesperson for the shipyard stated: “Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is not immune to the same hiring challenges, such as lack of affordable housing, which other employers face in the region.”

The spokesperson also referred to a joint ongoing study the shipyard is conducting together with the Southern Maine Planning and Development Commission. 

Carver said work on the study officially began in 2018 and has studied a variety of economic issues in several stages, and is only now gathering hard data on shipyard worker housing. 

She added that the commission is hearing anecdotally about shipyard workers struggling to find homes, which led to the current study’s work. She said some workers have had to live as far away as Sanford and even Rochester, N.H.

“Obviously, there’s a much more significant commute from those inland communities,” she said.

The commission’s 2021 Housing Affordability Report, studying all of York County based on data from MaineHousing,  shows how hard it is to afford a new home in coastal communities. 

The report ranked the communities of York County according to affordability, calculated by comparing median home prices in individual communities to home prices considered “affordable” to those making median incomes in the same communities. 

The report found coastal towns, including York, Kennebunkport, Arundel and Biddeford ranked in the top five “unaffordable” communities in 2019 and 2020. 

In 2015, the shipyard’s home town of Kittery was on the top five list, beaten only by Ogunquit and Kennebunkport as being “unaffordable” to median income workers. 

The same report also ranked the top five “affordable” communities in York County for the same years, with the rankings dominated by inland communities such as Berwick, Waterboro, Limington, Buxton and Limerick.

Steen said he hopes that the shipyard’s housing struggles will inspire legislators and other officials to encourage the development of middle-income housing. 

“There needs to be significant change in the model in terms of housing,” he said. “It’s that targeted spot of people that make good wages.”

Carver said while the new joint housing study with Portsmouth Naval Shipyard isn’t finished, she believes that employers such as the shipyard will struggle as much as Bath Iron Works has to retain workers who can’t afford to live close by.

“Housing issues, they’re a significant challenge for hiring,” she said.