How much cash is in your “money bag?” For most of the workers responding to Converting's exclusive 2007 Salary Survey, the answer is “more than last year.” Just how much that increase was, though, depends on the job title.

Our second annual survey gathered base salary and total compensation figures for two dozen job titles in five separate categories. Results are presented in the adjacent table and accompanying pie charts. The survey, managed by the research group of Reed Business Information-US—Converting's parent company, reflects the responses of 400 con-verting-industry members from across the country about trends in salaries for 2006. Combined with data from our premiere study, nearly 1,000 industry professionals have participated.

Based on these raw numbers, the spread in pay hikes is dramatic—from the VP of Manufacturing/Operations' high to the Project/Operations Manager's low. While this is partly due to the study covering only two years, a truer estimate of salary increases may be somewhere in between; our 2008 survey should provide a more realistic middle ground.

Whether high or low, a larger percentage of respondents this year said they received some kind of base-salary increase for 2007. Fortunately, the number of workers reporting that their salaries were cut dropped by two-thirds.

As shown in the table above, nearly half of those responding received minimal pay raises. This appears to be a reflection of tight labor-cost controls being implemented by employers in light of rising raw-material and energy prices for all types of converting operations—particularly true for the flexible-packaging industry. With these businesses' profit margins running at half the rate of US manufacturers in general, and material costs rising 10 percent in some cases, flex-pack makers have kept their direct-labor expenditures as a percentage of outlay steady for several years.

On the other hand, getting and retaining skilled labor is the No. 2 issue facing these converters, according to the Flexible Packaging Association's 2006 State of the Industry Report. Certainly, paying people what they deserve for their performance must be kept in mind—before they look elsewhere. That may be partly the reason why 2 percent of respondents got more than a 10-percent raise this year.

The 2007 Salary Survey drew a real cross-section of the industry. The typical respondent works at a Mid-Atlantic- or East North Central-based flexible-packaging manufacturer that makes between $25 million and $100 million in annual sales, and employs more than 100 other workers. Our male-dominated field seems to be just that as only 10 percent of those surveyed were female. Education-wise, they are likely to have at least a bachelor's degree (20 percent of respondents have a master's degree as well) and have worked in the converting industry for around 20 years.

Dollar figures aside, our survey again asked what kinds of fringe benefits respondents get. The insurance numbers changed only slightly compared to last year: health (96.2%); life (84.3%); dental (81.1%); disability (74.6%); and vision (59.2%). Slightly more respondents this year were offered a 401(k) retirement savings plan (83.7%) as well a company pension plan (31.1%). The same goes for converters providing maternity/paternity leave (45.3%) and tuition reimbursement (55.9%).

Lastly, to get a better sense of how converters' jobs are changing, we asked what's impacting their various responsibilities. While a bit more than half said they've had no specific job shifting in the past year, the number affected by re-engineering/staff development grew significantly (19.3%, up from only 12.4% in 2005). Equal numbers were hit by downsizing/cost-cutting (18.7%); the adoption of new technology (17.6%); and promotions/movement in the company (17.0%).