Electrician shortage delays production of Zumwalt destroyer

Delivery of General Dynamics Corp.’s first two electric-powered Zumwalt-class destroyers for the U.S. Navy is running more than a year late, in part because of a shortage of electricians, according to the service.

Work at the contractor’s Bath Iron Works unit in Maine has fallen behind “due to the complexity of the first-ever all-electric ship and the particular demand it has created for skilled electricians shipyard-wide,” said Commander Thurraya Kent, a Navy spokeswoman.

The Navy and Bath Iron Works now estimate that delivery of the first of three vessels in the $22 billion program, which had been planned for September 2014, will be in November.

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