Manufacturing Salaries

The composite highest-income practitioner reported in this field (salary plus cash bonus and/or cash profit-sharing) is the President "B" of a manufacturing firm (defined as a chief executive officer who has little or no financial interest in the firm). The firm manufactures automotive parts/accessories, food/beverage/tobacco products, chemical & allied products, or machinery & heavy equipment; has 1,000 or more employees; has a total annual revenue of $100,000,000 or more; and is headquartered in or near Denver/Colorado Springs, Houston, Memphis, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Modesto/Stockton, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Indianapolis, Boston, New York City, or Dayton, or outside a metropolitan area studied in Idaho. However, while the median President "B' has a total annual income of $214,966, the highest-income individuals reported are Presidents "A" (having a financial interest in the firm) and make well over $30,000,000.

Far toward the other end of the income spectrum, Assemblers "D" have a median income of $20,418. Sometimes earning under $14,600, the lowest-paid employees in this group are employed by firms that manufacture building materials; have $1 million to $4.99 million in total annual revenue; have 5,000 to 9,999 employees; and are located in or near Greensboro/Winston-Salem, Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, Dallas/Ft. Worth, or Charlotte, or outside the metropolitan areas studied in Texas, North Carolina, or Florida.

These composites represent the briefest possible "boil-down" of the voluminous data provided regarding current salaries and cash bonuses and/or profit sharing, and numerous demographic variables provided by 343 firms on over 54,000 managerial, supervisory, sales, engineering, technical, clerical, and blue-collar employees in 187 benchmark jobs which resulted in the eight-volume survey report, Compensation in Manufacturing, 24th Edition - 2004, sponsored by the National Association of Manufacturers.

Copies of the entire eight-volume report are available for $1,250.00 from Abbott, Langer & Associates, Inc., Dept. ART, 548 First St., Crete, IL 60417 (telephone 708/672-4200; fax 708/672-4674; www.abbott-langer.com) Also available is Compensation in Smaller Manufacturing Firms (under 250 employees) for $595.00. Each volume of both reports may be purchased separately. Also available is findpay-MFG04 (a computer program which permits the user to determine pay levels of each survey job on the basis of two or more variables simultaneously).

It would be an exercise in futility to attempt more than a superficial overview of the survey results in this summary. However, some overall data regarding compensation can be presented herein. In addition to the incomes of the benchmark jobs already discussed, the median total cash compensation nationally of some of the other jobs included in the survey report is:

Chief Legal Officers - $181,200

Vice Presidents of Manufacturing/Production - $135,375

Chief Marketing & Sales Executives - $133,835

Chief Corporate Financial Officers - $130,066

Vice Presidents of Manufacturing/Production Engineering - $112,274

Research & Development Managers - $90,377

Engineering Department Managers/Superintendents - $89,232

Chief Human Resources Executives - $80,849

Plant Managers/Superintendents - $78,595

Product/Brand Managers - $75,789

Design Managers - $74,347

Facilities Managers - $68,198

Cost Accounting Managers - $67,161

Sales Engineers - $67,000

Manufacturing Engineers - $66,477

Production Managers/Superintendents - $65,730

Quality Assurance/Control Managers - $64,890

Computer Programmers - $61,963

Purchasing Managers - $61,805

Warehouse Managers - $54,000

General Production Supervisors - $49,781

General Accountants - $48,725