The 2010 CTE Salary Survey signals the level of metalworking professionals' compensation after the 'Great Recession.'

Smackers, moolah, greenbacks, scratch, bucks, clams, cabbage, bacon, dough, dead presidents … . Americans likely have as many words for money as the Inuit, according to urban legend, have for snow. And, like the receding glaciers, there doesn't seem to be as much cold, hard cash to go around these days. To determine how much lucre metalworking professionals are receiving, Cutting Tool Engineering conducted its Sixth Biennial Salary Survey.

As always, CTE's latest salary survey found that corporate managers receive the most, averaging $115,440. That's an increase of $18,466 from 2008 and nearly double the combined pay hikes from four other positions that experienced one. Compared to '08, plant managers, on average, received a $5,313 raise to $77,966, engineering supervisors' pay went up $2,493 to $73,556, CNC machinists took in $747 more for a $42,078 total, and manual machinists were paid $37,597, or $1,190 more.

The six positions—pay wise—between CNC machinist and engineering supervisor on the salary survey's graphs, however, saw their average salaries slip from 2 years ago, with project engineers dropping the most, $5,423, to $58,929. Only design engineers saw their pay decrease in the 2008 survey.

Along with wages, benefits are also down—significantly in many cases. For example, 51.5 percent fewer engineering supervisors and 50.7 percent fewer design engineers receive paid health insurance than in 2008. In a sign that the cost of health insurance is rising at such a rate that more companies cannot afford to provide coverage to their employees, all positions saw a reduction in their percentages covered by health insurance. That includes corporate managers, with a 0.1 percent decline. However, that position did see a 41.7 percent increase for dental insurance, a 22.8 percent increase for profit sharing, a 31.5 percent increase for paid training and a 36.3 percent increase for the benefit of receiving a company vehicle.

Possibly because of the continuing technological advances in metalcutting equipment and software, most positions saw a percentage increase for paid training/continuing education. In addition to corporate managers, 31.3 percent more CNC machinists, 12.6 percent more manual machinists and programmers, 12.2 percent more shop supervisors and 4.2 percent more plant managers receive the benefit than in the 2008 survey.

Unlike the previous five surveys, CTE used e-mail rather than mail to collect survey data from owners and managers of manufacturing companies who subscribe to the magazine. However, the format remained the same: We requested average annual salaries and benefits for themselves and their employees.

CTE sent forms to the 6,793 corporate managers with functioning e-mails in our database. We didn't ask participants to identify themselves unless they wanted to enter a drawing for incentive prizes, and 207 completed the questionnaire—a 3.0 percent response rate. That's comparable to the 212 returned questionnaire from the previous survey in which 1,000 randomly chosen corporate managers were mailed forms.

The average salary was calculated according to the arithmetic mean. For example, if four recipients indicated their CNC machinists earn average annual salaries, even when receiving an hourly wage, of $36,000, $39,000, $41,000 and $43,000, the mean would equal $39,750 ([36,000 + 39,000 + 41,000 + 43,000] ÷ 4 = 39,750).

The benefit percentages were calculated by dividing the total number of positive replies for a specific benefit by the total number of respondents. For example, if 112 respondents indicated that their plant managers receive dental insurance, the percentage receiving that benefit would be 54.1 percent (112 ÷ 207 = 0.541). CTE