Lawmakers press Navy, industry on shipyard workforce, capacity and infrastructure funding
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Summary
Senators pressed Navy witnesses and GAO on workforce shortages, hiring and retention, shipyard capacity and infrastructure projects including SIOP investments and the Puget Sound carrier-drydock plan.
Senators pressed witnesses about the scale of workforce and infrastructure work needed to expand U.S. shipbuilding capacity and to reverse chronic production shortfalls.
"We have to be open to new approaches," Ranking Member Tim Kaine said, and asked witnesses to detail workforce and supply-chain effects they see across shipyards. Dr. Brett Seidl described hiring initiatives: "We've had 16,000,000 hits on that site, 2,500,000 applications. It's led to about 9,700 employees hired in '23, a 40% increase over '22, another 10k in '24," he said, while warning attrition in year one remains high.
Vice Adm. Downey outlined NAVSEA priorities for workforce retention and waterfront productivity, noting that wages, housing and local services factor into hiring and retention. He said NAVSEA is working to modernize yards, improve kitting and increase procurement lead times to better support production.
Senators sought specifics on infrastructure planning. Dr. Seidl and Downey said investments under the Navy's Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) remain underway and that the large Puget Sound multi-mission dry dock (M2D2) project and associated carrier-support upgrades are being sequenced to avoid harming ongoing SIOP work at other yards. "We do not expect impacts to current SIOP projects," Seidl said, and NAVSEA told senators M2D2 has a slow start around 2028 with major activity by 2030 pending budget decisions.
Lawmakers and witnesses also discussed retention, apprenticeship programs and wage compression. Witnesses described higher attrition in the first year and noted that raising entry wages could add roughly 1% to the cost of a large ship while improving retention and ultimately lowering program costs. Senators urged expanding apprenticeships and community-college partnerships and requested more data on long-term retention after hiring surges.
Ending: Senators asked for follow-up material on project timetables, workforce retention metrics and the anticipated effect of industrial investments; the committee left the record open for questions for the record.