Salaries or Pay Scales

jbanda · May 2001

Help!!! I'm looking for a website or other type of information in which I can retrieve salary or pay scale information that I can compare to my company's pay Scale, I want to make sure our salaries our competitive to our Industry (Furniture Mfg.)and to our area (southwest Dallas, Tx). Is it ethical and normal to call other Furniture Manufacturing Co. and ask for this information?
Thanks

Theresa Gegen TX · May 2001

You can try looking at the Bureau of Labor Statistics information. It can be accessed through [url]www.dol.gov[/url]

The website appears to have lots of information, but I have not tried to do a focused search for salary information to see how useful it would be. If you try it, I would appreciate any feed back.

Good Luck

CuriousG · May 2001

When using any website or published wage study be sure you understand just what the numbers represnt. For instance, here in Oklahoma you can access a website maintained by the State Department of Labor that has wage information for a host of positions, but the data is gathered based upon unemployment wage claims, and is as much as 18 months old. I use the site as a reference point, but I would not consider it definitive information.

I would suggest you try purchasing some wage survey data, from a local Compensation consulting company. They usually will have conducted more industry specific studies, that are much more current than what you will find at a web site. $250 to $1,000 can purchase a lot of relevant information on wages and benefits.

warmheartky · June 2001

I call the competition all the time for salary surveys and comparisons. If you establish a rapport with whoever does salaries at your competition it only benefits you both. The only web site I am aware of is salary.com and I don't know how valid their information is.

Good luck!

jdawson · June 2001

Try [url]www.123-jobs.com[/url] or [url]www.abbott-langer.com[/url]
Good Luck

Crash · June 2001

I read an article that cautioned against calling other companies to discuss salaries because it could be construed as a violation of anti-trust laws. It was a little blurb that didn't go into detail except to say salary information should be obtained through salary survey materials and not by private discussions on a company-to-company basis. Can anyone comment as to the relevance of the advice?

Don Avery · June 2001

I think that the article was in reference to a case in Utah in 1994:United States v. Society for Healthcare Human Resources Admin.,et al. (94C282G, 3/14/94.
The DOJ guidelines that came from that case can be found on:[url]http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/guidelines/0000.htm#CONTNUM[/url] 49
Once arriving at that site go to page 49.

Don Avery · July 2001

I made an error in the case citation. It should have been:
United States v. Utah Soc'y for Healthcare Human Resources Admin., et al. (94C282G, 3/14/94

Sharon · July 2001

We are a shipyard and conduct our own wage/benefit survey every year when we get ready to review our pay rates. This is very beneficial but can be time consuming. This year we went outside of our industry and had little luck in getting information. If you do this you might want to put something in writing (some companies will not take the time to answer a survey over the phone but will if they can do it in their own time). Of course you will want to put a deadline on the return of the survey and will probably have to follow up with those who do not respond. You will also want to assure them the information is kept confidential and you will share the final survey with them (identifying the companies only as A,B,C, etc.)

bsa · July 2001

"salary.com" is a good website for salary information and job descriptions.

Salaries or Pay Scales

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