Average packaging salary went up 4.4% last year: annual IoPP salary survey shows end users get raises more often than suppliers

Food & Drug Packaging, May, 2005 by Pan Demetrakakes

Perhaps the biggest surprise in this year's salary survey by the Institute of Packaging Professionals (IoPP) is the lack of surprises.

Salaries in the packaging field are determined by predictable factors: age, experience and education.

Regional patterns are familiar, with the Northeast leading the country in salaries and the South trailing.

The annual IoPP survey was an Internet-based poll that yielded 468 usable responses, for a margin of error of /-4.5%. However, that margin is bigger for some queries that drew a smaller response.

In addition to their salaries, 68% of respondents received a bonus, many of which were quite hefty: They came to an average of $10,822.

One striking aspect of the survey involved differences between supplier and end user companies. The same proportion of supplier employees and end-user employees (69%) reported receiving a bonus. But the bonuses received by supplier employees were heftier: $13,717 as opposed to $9,365, a difference of 46%.

On the other hand, 84% of the end-user employees reported receiving a raise, compared with only 70% of the supplier employees. This phenomenon may be attributable to a "pull-through" effect, in which suppliers wait for demand from end users before granting raises and taking other economic risks.

"I think it's a trend in capital equipment in general," says Dan Charney, director of packaging and material handling practice at Direct Recruiters Inc., an executive search firm. "While in the past year we've seen a little bit of an upward spike coming out of the recession, I still think that it's a wait-and-see type of economy. I think that a lot of companies are holding off on raises and hiring until they see more spending from end users."

The portrait of the packaging professional that emerged from the IoPP survey is similar to that of previous years. A slight majority (53%) have an undergraduate degree, with 25% holding an advanced degree. The average respondent is 39.9 years old. About one-fourth are Certified Packaging Professionals, a qualification conferred by IoPP. Sixty percent of them work for end-user companies, while 24% work for suppliers. Another 8% classified their employer as "both," and the remaining 8% as "neither." About two-thirds work for companies with more than 1,000 employees.

Engineering is the most common job function, with 52% falling into that category; corporate management is a distant second at 13%. More than 90% of all respondents are IoPP members--not surprising, perhaps, because the survey was posted online by IoPP.

Different factors

These and other factors had varying effects on salaries:

* Geographic location. The top geographic area in terms of salary was the Northeast, which weighed in at $85,769. This was 23% ahead of the South, which brought up the rear at $69,834. Southerners were also the least likely to get a bonus (53% of them did) or a raise (71%).

* Gender. Males hold a significant edge over their female counterparts: $81,616 to $70,316, a 16% difference. The survey notes, however, that on average, male respondents were about three years older with correspondingly more experience.

* Age. As is true in almost every industry, a strong correlation exists between salary and age. The average salary for an employee under 25 is $48,240; it steadily increases by age until hitting the peak of $104,197 for workers aged 55 to 64.

* Experience. Again, no surprises: as experience rises, so does compensation. Respondents with less than two years of experience pulled down $52,404; at the highest level, more than 20 years, compensation reached $100,012.

* Education. Salary takes a big leap for respondents who have been to graduate school. Those with some grad work come in at $85,847, a 22% increase over respondents with undergraduate degrees. Those with graduate degrees reported salaries of $88,576.

* Job function. As might be expected, corporate managers receive the highest compensation, at $110,381. The next highest classification was marketing/sales, at $79,731. About one-third of marketing/sales employees, however, reported receiving no raise last year.

Engineers, the most frequent job classification among respondents, were firmly in the middle in terms of salary, at $73,333, or about 7% less than the mean for all respondents.

* Certification. For engineers, becoming a Certified Packaging Professional made a significant difference in salary: $84,268, an increase of 11% over those who are not certified. Across other job classifications, certification appeared to make little or no difference in pay.

* Organization size. Companies with less than 100 employees seem to have an edge in initial compensation, with an average salary of $94,464, which is 20% more than the average for all respondents. However, employees at these small companies were the least likely to have received a raise or a bonus last year. Only 52% of respondents for such companies got a raise; the other categories were all over 80%.

* IoPP membership. Respondents who belong to IoPP reported an average of about $4,500 more in base salary than non-members. However, the survey cautions that the base of non-members is so small that it's hard to draw conclusions.