Another soft year

The eighth MRO Today maintenance salary survey, conducted by Compdata Surveys, shows wages growing modestly but overshadowed by pension and healthcare concerns.

by Tom Hammel

Regardless of which SIC code you fall into, industry studies show that healthcare, job retention and pension issues are overshadowing and effectively capping annual pay raises in many manufacturing firms. This is particularly true in union shops that continue to fight shrinking benefits, layoffs and job outsourcing.

“As we have seen played out in the media, unions are more concerned with the stability of pension plans and receiving affordable health insurance,” says Amy Kaminski, manager of marketing programs for Compdata Surveys. “Employees realize they will not see significant increases in salaries when they are fighting for other benefits.”

These factors, plus ongoing concerns about the state of the economy, war, terrorism, rising fuel costs and inflation have combined to cap annual raises in the manufacturing sector at an average of 3.35 percent.

Compdata Surveys’ findings came from polling 2,272 manufacturing companies from April to June of this year. These firms collectively employ 1,379,323 people,  including 20,548 maintenance workers (managers and non-managers).

Comparatively, our 2005 report polled 3.3 percent fewer companies (2,272 vs. 2,348), that employ 32 percent more employees (1,379,323 vs. 941,079). The truly telling figures are that although this year’s survey pool was 32 percent larger than last year’s, the number of maintenance related job titles in those firms has fallen 12.4 percent, from 23,445 in 2004 to 20,548 in 2005. Such a significant reduction over one year speaks volumes about outsourcing, consolidation and downsizing. For further comparison, the 2004 report listed 5 percent more maintenance jobs than in 2003 (23,445 vs. 22,269).

The study for MRO Today encompasses nine maintenance organization titles: plant engineering manager, maintenance manager, senior maintenance supervisor, maintenance supervisor, senior maintenance mechanic, maintenance mechanic, senior maintenance electrician, maintenance electrician and HVAC mechanic. For more information on these nine titles, click here.

These nine titles saw across-the-board pay increases, ranging from 2.70 percent for senior maintenance electricians to 2.21 percent for maintenance managers. The average increase for the five hourly titles was 2.20 percent. The average increase for the four supervisory positions was 1.81 percent. Last year, pay to the hourly titles rose an average of 3.47 percent, while pay to their supervisors increased 2.86 percent.

Click here to view all of the 2005 results, dissected by job title, plant size and region of the country.

This article appeared in the October/November 2005 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright 2005.

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