How you doing? You all right? Keeping up with the mortgage, the car loans? Some of you are probably putting kids through college, or paying for braces, or both. Regardless, keeping a healthy cash flow is likely priority number one. Each year we take an X-ray of CONTROL Magazine reader's wallets to see how things are going in the money department and check the pulse of the process industry's compensation and benefit levels.
Judging by the responses to our 2004 Salary Survey, salaries are holding steady for most of you out there"meaning they aren't falling"but they haven't risen much either. Compared to last year, salaries for the typical (review your profile in the table below) rose only by a fraction of a percent. And about half of our respondents remain anxious, nervous that job security is truly a thing of the past. Several commented that the only thing keeping them from becoming an unemployment statistic was the health of next quarter's bottom line. A female hydraulic tool maintenance technician fromAfter steady, though even average salary gains year after year since the last recession, wage increases fell off to almost next to nothing for respondents after 9/11. Considering the uncertainty of the economy, the War on Terror and other circumstances it's not surprising. Will market forces keep wages at this level for the foreseeable future? Time will tell, but for now, survey responses reveal salaries are no longer climbing like they did when the economy was roaring in the 90s.
The folks at Salary.com offer an earnings benchmark that most of us can relate to; Big Macs per hour. How do you stack up?
While it's not news Corporate managers tend to have higher salaries, those responding this year reported incomes $6,703 less than the figure reported in 2003.
Representing just 6% of our respondents, women remain a rarity in the process industries This year the average salary reported for this small group dropped by 7% from $63,833 to $59,560.