Eighth Annual MD&DI Salary Survey
INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS GAIN GROUND AGAINST CHANGING MARKET
Steven Halasey
Introduction
Salary, Raises, and Compensation
The Employee |
The Company
Conclusion |
Survey Methodology
Order the Full Report |
Salary Estimator
Device industry professionals who have been wondering what will be the effects of such industry megatrends as health-care reform, buyer and supplier consolidation, downsizing, and globalized competition need do so no more. To find the answer, it turns out, they probably do not need to look much farther than their pocketbooks.
According to the results of MD&DI's annual salary survey for 1996, during the past year device industry professionals received salary increases averaging 6.2%, and more than half of such employees also received bonuses averaging $7890. Meanwhile, total compensation in the device industry grew at a rate of 2.5% to an average of $83,400, besting last year's figure by $2000. But according to the same survey, overall salary growth during the year was nearly flat, improving by only 0.5%.
The story of what happened to device industry compensation over the past year is told not only in the data compiled for MD&DI's survey, but also in the answers of respondents to the survey's open-ended questions. Asked what industry trends would affect their personal compensation during the coming year, more than two dozen respondents replied that their chief concern was "consolidation" of either device companies or health-care provider organizations--or both. Another two dozen respondents expressed worry about the effects of "downsizing," and a dozen more answered simply "health-care reform."
While the direct implications of these megatrends for employee compensation during the past year cannot be determined from MD&DI's survey, it is clear that respondents to this year's survey understand well their potential effects. "Consolidation in the industry," wrote one respondent, "will reduce percent of raises and bonuses." And another commented that consolidation will reduce the number of available positions, creating a "higher supply of qualified employees for smaller number of positions, reducing salary growth."
The following article describes some of the general results of MD&DI's salary survey for 1996. But the survey report actually contains much more, including tabular breakdowns for each of the seven job categories surveyed. Copies of the full report are available from Canon Communications.
