Palo Verde was offering 27-30/hr for new AO hires depending on experience. It has gone down 2-3/hr from there over the past few years. The problem is that the experienced AO's that make the most money are retiring, at many plants. That makes the calculated average wage go down. So when they benchmark pay with other plants, they can conclude that pay should go down to be in alignment with the rest of the industry. Palo Verde is non-union so they can get away with this (a dirty trick if you ask me). However it is cheap to live in Arizona and there are two outages per year and plenty of opportunity for overtime as an AO. They are hiring large classes of AO's so there is opportunity to get your foot in the door, especially if you are ex-Navy. They also have the largest license classes in the industry and this will likely continue for years due to so many retirements. They have begun picking up qualified AO's to go instant SRO also. I have seen people get selected for license class right after completing their AO qualifications. There is a ton of competition for class spots now due to the number and quality of the AO's being hired. AO qualifications take about two years from date of hire. You get a small raise after half your quals are done. Fully qualified AO's start at about 33.50/hr with 1.5x overtime and annual bonus up to about 9% base pay. The shift differential pay is an insulting 1.20/hr for nightshifts. They also get very small raises which probably cap out around 42/hr (only for the AO's that have been there forever). Newly qualified RO's make just under 40/hr plus license bonus. SRO's and STA's only get straight time OT. However RO and SRO pay is top secret for whatever reason. Don't expect to get an offer letter. You won't know what you will make in training or what you'll make when training is over. The only offer letter you will ever get is your training rate when hired to be an AO. There is no retention bonus for license holders. SRO instants and upgrades get a raise during class, but AO's stay at their AO rate. So, you will lose almost all of your overtime for almost 2 years while in class. Essentially you take a sizable pay cut for two years to go to class from the AO position, which really sucks. By the way, APS pays operators at non-nuclear plants considerably more than the nuclear operators. They start at 36/hr. Then again, they are union. Also, most other technicians at the site seem to make as much if not more than the AO's, and they don't do shift work. They work 4 days at 10hr/day, a much better schedule. You have a decent chance of getting a license at Palo Verde, but you will make less money than at other plants. If you aren't interested in a license, you are probably better off going to a conventional plant or being a technician. The pay and quality of life would be better. The AO is just not as respected a position as it once was, at least in management's eyes.
