MEMORANDUM
TO: W. Calvin Horton, Town Manager
FROM: Pam Eastwood, Human Resources Director
DATE: March 3, 2005
SUBJECT: Pay Report Comparing Pay of Town Jobs to Pay of Private-Sector Jobs as Reported by 2004 Capital Associated Industries Survey
PURPOSE
This report presents data and findings about average pay of selected Town jobs compared to pay for private sector jobs in the Research Triangle area of the labor market. Overall, it appears that the average pay for most Town jobs which had a comparison job in this report falls below the weighted average pay for the comparison job in the private sector.
BACKGROUND
The 2004 Pay Survey compiled by Capital Associated Industries, a local employer services firm, was used to identify jobs in the private sector which match to Town jobs in three occupational categories:
· Clerical and office support
· Administrative
· Construction/maintenance.
Attachment 1 page 3 contains a table of the Town jobs which could be matched to the CAI Survey jobs, including the title of each, the average actual salary of the Town jobs compared to the weighted average salary paid by the CAI survey jobs, and indicates the difference between the two as a percentage.
Attachment 2 page 4 contains information on the Capital Associated Industries survey, including the survey structure, geographic areas included, definitions, and findings on pay increase trends for companies surveyed. The participants are primarily manufacturing firms. For this report, Area 1 was used; it contains companies located in Alamance, Orange, Durham and Wake Counties. In this attachment, you will also find information titled “Guidelines for Using This Survey”.
Attachment 3 page 27 contains a sample page from the survey illustrating the information on the job title of Truck Driver-Heavy/Local Area. This page illustrates the way the survey information is formatted. This job title and its accompanying description matched to the Town title and job description of “Construction Worker III-Truck Driver”.
Once this match was established, the information provided at the bottom of the page for the weighted average pay rate for Geographic Area 1 was selected. As this information is shown as an hourly rate, the Human Resources staff converted it to an annual rate and reported it in comparison to the average actual pay of all Town employees with this job title.
DISCUSSION
Comparing this information helps us to see where pay for Town jobs falls in terms of similar work in the private sector. While these matches are not as satisfactory as the comparison of work with other municipalities and public sector organizations, it helps to fill in the overall picture of the labor market and expected changes.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Pay for Town jobs in the clerical and office support category appears to be reasonably competitive with average pay in the private sector. Pay for Town jobs in the administrative and construction/maintenance categories appears to be lower than average pay in the private sector.
The Human Resources staff will continue to obtain, analyze and report on this information regularly. We believe the information obtained through the annual survey conducted by the North Carolina League of Municipalities and the annual survey conducted by the Town provides more relevant and accurate data for use in assessing the local labor market, and that the information obtained from the Capital Associated Industries survey should be given less weight in developing recommendations to the Council for maintaining competitive pay levels for the Town. The Town does not compete with those employers who participated in the Capital Associate Industries survey for employees. Those employers surveyed are typically manufacturing companies. There were few jobs that could be compared to Town jobs because most of the jobs in the survey do not closely match the Town’s jobs.
ATTACHMENTS