Survey sheds light on area wages, benefits

The average number of paid holidays manufacturing employees get each year is 8 1/2, about 13 percent of manufacturing companies are unionized and team leader wages start at about $11.69 an hour.

The new 2005 Southeast Missouri Wage and Benefit Survey -- prepared by Workforce Employment Solutions -- offers local business leaders insight into how manufacturing and service companies stack up in terms of benefits and wages, providing information that they can use when making company evaluations.

"We started this six years ago because our clients were asking for this information," said Marlene Brockmiller, president of Workforce Employment Solutions, a staffing firm with offices across Southeast Missouri, including Cape Girardeau.

The survey includes information on 16,084 employees in Southeast Missouri who work for 98 regional companies. Among those employees, 4,787 work in the service industry while 11,297 work in manufacturing. It covers companies in Iron, Jefferson, Stoddard, Ste. Genevieve, St. Francois, Washington, Cape Girardeau, St. Louis, Madison, Bollinger, Perry, New Madrid and Scott counties.

Not all the companies that respond to the survey are clients of Workforce Employment. But they also are promised anonymity, for proprietary reasons.

"As long as people don't feel like they're giving away the store, they don't mind sharing information," Brockmiller said.

Some of the information in the survey includes:

* 95 percent of participating manufacturing companies offer health insurance benefits to their employees while 94 percent of service companies do.

* 19 percent of manufacturing companies offer educational assistance to their employees, while 25 percent of service companies do.

* 21 percent of those manufacturing companies pay 100 percent of their employees health insurance benefits, while 47 percent of service companies pay 100 percent.

* In manufacturing, entry level employees have a start rate of $8.69 an hour, and a top rate of $13.06; at service companies, entry level wages start at $8.90 and top out at $14.55.

* Supervisory wages in manufacturing start at $13.83 and top out at $19.91; at service companies, managers start at $13.47 and top out at $23.95.

Joe Rozier, vice president of Workforce Development, said the information -- which is provided free to all who participated -- is useful in gauging whether employees are paid fairly or to show employees that they are paid an adequate wage.

"For some, it's a realization that they have good people that might be getting paid less than they should," Rozier said. "It's really just good information for these companies to have."

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137