Salaries satisfy

Packager salaries and benefits remain robust, according to an exclusive Packworld.com survey.

Chart 1
Chart 1

Wake the neighbors and get the word out: Packaging jobs can be downright lucrative. That’s according to 389 respondents to Packaging World’s third salary survey, conducted in March and April on PW’s Web site, Packworld.com.

Nearly 87% of respondents reported that their annual gross salary topped $40ꯠ, with 32.3% pulling down upwards of $80K (see Chart 1). Because replies were exclusively of the electronic variety—coming from those who can afford computer hardware and software and Internet access—it’s possible that the incomes skew upward compared to two previous surveys that were conducted by regular mail (see packworld.com/go/037 and packworld.com/go/038 ). However, salary growth reflected in this survey is commensurate with income levels reported in those 1997 and 2000 surveys.

The news about packaging salaries parallels the positive results of an earlier Packworld.com survey regarding job security (see packworld.com/go/039). The combination of climbing salaries and job security is especially encouraging given the layoffs, wage freezes, and pay cuts reported by companies nationwide in the past year or two.

Understandably, few respondents voiced salary-based complaints. Those that did, however, brought up some thought-provoking issues (see sidebar).

Survey respondents also said they received handsome benefits (see Chart 2). More than 96%, for example, enjoyed medical insurance; 85.7% had a 401K or similar plan; 84.7% had life insurance; and three of four had disability insurance. Less common benefits, such as family leave, were listed by 40.1%, flextime by 29.8%, and training for promotion by 17.1%.

Asked in a separate survey question about vacation time, 35.8% received three weeks, 31.1% had two weeks, and nearly 30% reported four weeks or more. Only 3.1% said one week, hinting that even employees with little experience were likely to receive more than one week of annual vacation.

More responsibility

Despite the hardships endured by workers in some industries, more than a third of packagers responding to this survey said they faced no job changes in the past year (see Chart 3). The most oft-cited change was more responsibilities without more pay, by 31.8% of respondents.

This lament was also common in the first two salary surveys, and was the subject of many verbatim comments from this survey’s respondents. Three concerns voiced frequently by packagers were excess time spent in meetings, time spent away from family on business trips they did not always feel were fruitful, and time spent on “boring” paperwork.

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