Wages rising for plastics industry workers: survey

Wages are set to rise for plastics industry workers, according to a new survey conducted by the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) and Gros Executive Recruiters.

“While pay raises are still scarce, the job scare has ended, and our survey indicates that a change is inevitable,” Dennis Gros, president of Gros Executive Recruiters, said in a press release. “Trust me – plastics industry employees expect a raise this year.”

Conducted during the past two months, the ninth annual Plastics Salary and Trends Survey gathered responses from 2,144 plastics professionals about their compensation in 2012 and their outlook for 2013. Slightly over 77% of employees said they expect an increase in their base salary this year, and the share of employers who expected employee salaries to increase was even higher – some 82%.

Compensation in the plastics industry decreased slightly last year. While the survey showed a total average compensation in calendar year 2012 of US$110,325, the corresponding figures for 2011 and 2010 were US$112,380 and US$111,124, respectively.

“Our statisticians assure us that this slight decrease is a marginal effect possibly due to a larger sample size,” said Mr. Gros, noting that there were 50% more respondents to this latest survey than for the previous one. “Overwhelmingly, workers feel increasingly secure that their jobs will exist twelve months from now. The job market and the available talent are closer to balance now, compared to any point during the past five years.”

Four years ago, only 50.7% of respondents were “very” confident that their current job would exist in the next twelve months, Gros said. In 2013, 75.1% answered the same question affirmatively.

“There will be a continuation of growth opportunities over the next several years in the plastics industry,” said Willem De Vos, CEO of the Washington, DC-based SPE. “We will continue to see a healthy turn in the plastics industry, especially in the United States.”

A detailed report of the survey will be available in the July/August issue of the SPE magazine Plastics Engineering. SPE members can obtain a copy of the 2013 survey, with detailed information, by logging in to their member accounts at http://www.4spe.org.