This special report on salaries is based on 389 respondents to a March and April survey conducted on Packaging World’s Web site, Packworld.com.
Eighty-two percent of respondents were male. In terms of age, 32.3% of respondents said they were in their 40s, and 32.1% were 30 to 39 years old. Just 12.2% of participants were in their 20s.
Nearly one-fourth of the respondents described their main job duty as engineering; 18.8% listed packaging-specific titles; 12.9%, management; and 12.6%, purchasing. Other areas, in declining order of respondents, were marketing, R&D, quality assurance, production, and maintenance.
Company size was balanced fairly evenly, with 31.1% at firms employing 101 to 500 people, 25.6% at larger companies with at least 2ꯠ people, 23% at small companies employing 100 or fewer, and 20.3% employed by companies in the 501 to 2ꯠ range. Nearly 92% worked for end-user companies that bought packaging machinery, materials, or services; whereas 8.4% were employed at contract packaging companies.
More than 29% of the survey’s respondents identified food as the main product produced by their company. Next came industrial products and nonfood consumer products, both at 15.8%; medical/pharmaceutical at 14.5%; and beverages at 9.5%. Smaller numbers of respondents came from companies making cosmetics/personal care products, and chemicals/cleaners for house, auto, or lawn applications.
Geographically speaking, nearly 30% responded from the Midwest, more than 21% from the Northeast, 17.3% from the Southeast, and 15.5% from the West Coast/Northwest. The Southwest, Mid-Atlantic, and Mountain States provided fewer respondents.
