Groton — About 165 people who have received conditional offers to work at Electric Boat have not been able to start work due to a backlog in federal background check investigations.

That estimate is according to Dan Barrett, a spokesman for the company, who said it's "hard to quantify" whether the number of people awaiting security clearances has increased because the number of offers EB makes to prospective employees each month fluctuates.

Ken DelaCruz, president of the Metal Trade Council, the bargaining unit for most shipyard workers, estimated the number of people waiting to be higher. He guessed it is between 180 and 200. MTC represents about 2,500 boilermakers, office and professional employees, pipefitters, machinists, Teamsters, laborers, electricians and painters at EB's Groton shipyard.

"This logjam is ridiculous," said Delacruz, who receives calls regularly from frustrated individuals, who've received employment offers, wondering about the status of their background check.

"You can understand a couple of weeks, but it's gotten to point where it's ridiculous," he said.

Investigations into those who would be obtaining a secret security clearance for the first time take 123 days on average, and 175 days on average for those who would be obtaining a top secret clearance for the first time, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Investigations for top secret clearances require "much more" fieldwork than secret clearance investigations, OPM Press Secretary Sam Schumach said.

A 2004 law mandates that "to the extent practical," it take no longer than 40 days to complete at least 90 percent of all initial security clearance investigations, and no longer than 80 days to complete at least 90 percent of all initial top secret investigations.

The time it takes to get an interim clearance varies, according to Barrett, the spokesman, who said EB's "experience is that most clearances are received within 30 to 40 days, but it has been as low as seven days and as high as 90 days."

On EB's end, officials are "working aggressively" to reduce the time it takes to make offers to candidates "with the goal that this will offset the time required for the clearance process," Barrett said.

He noted the company has made progress in this regard.

A new agency, the National Background Investigations Bureau, created by the Obama administration to improve and speed up the background investigation process that has been plagued by backlogs and other issues, was officially up and running as of Oct. 1 and is led by CIA veteran Charles Phalen.

The semi-autonomous agency, set up within OPM, will be the primary provider of background investigations for the federal government.

Officials have highlighted some of the key aspects of the new agency as improved access to criminal history records through automated databases and exchanges, and enhanced IT security through a close collaboration with the defense department, among others.

About 25 million people were recently affected by two data breaches at OPM. The second breach impacted a larger number of people, about 21 million current, former or prospective federal employees and contractors and their security clearance background check records.

The vast majority of employees at EB hold security clearances, and very few people start at the company without one. The majority of shipyard workers have a secret clearance, or red badge, according to DelaCruz, the union president.

EB works closely with the Defense Security Service to identify high-priority needs to expedite clearances for those positions, Barrett said.

He said the long wait for clearances means "we haven’t been able to bring onto the job as many people as we would like as quickly as we would like. Longer times also affect prospective employees, who understandably may look for other jobs rather than wait out the clearance period."

And EB needs these people.

The company has ramped up hiring, primarily in the shipyard trades, to manage the large amount of work it has as a result of being awarded big Navy contracts. Most recently the company was named as the prime contractor for the Columbia-class program to build a new fleet of 12 ballistic missile submarines to replace the current fleet of 14 aging "boomers," as they're called.

The company has hired about 1,400 people already this year, and hiring will continue at a "brisk pace" until the end of 2017, Barrett said.

"Right now we're getting things done," DelaCruz said of the shipyard's workload. "As you move forward, our backs are going to be against the wall. There's a lot of work that's coming in and it requires more people. You can only work so much overtime."

DelaCruz recently attended a national Metal Trades convention, where this issue was widely discussed. He found out that EB is "actually faring better than some of the others."

j.bergman@theday.com