Last month, Print Industries Affiliates hosted a webinar that presented the results of their annual printing industry Wages & Benefits Survey. Having been conducted since the 1970s, this report is one of the most extensive and reliable labor management reports in the industry. This year, nearly 500 companies participated, and more than 17,000 employee data points were gleaned reflecting more than 130 industry positions. One caveat, as co-presenter Rick Riesgraf of LB Carlson pointed out, is that of “lagging information.” In the age of COVID, things are changing faster than surveys can often keep up with, and by the time data is collected, compiled, analyzed, written up, and presented, things may have changed. As a result, follow-up interviews were conducted to provide a “reality check” on the quantitative data. 

What is happening with industry wages? When comparing median wages for all job positions from 2020 to 2021, the average increase was 3.8%. Digging down, in job categories that saw a less than 4% increase, the average increase for salaried positions was 1.175%, while for hourly employees, the average increase was 3%. However, in those job categories that saw a more than 4% increase, the average increase for salaried positions was 8.7%, while for hourly employees, the average increase was 9.5%. “That shows that volatility of what's happening with increases across the board in our country, and this is specific to our industry,” said PIA MidAmerica’s Teresa Campbell, who co-presented the webinar. “Wages continue to rise briskly in industries with labor shortages, particularly transportation and warehousing,” she continued, “and some of that overlaps our industry. The job openings rate at which workers quit jobs has been at record highs in the last few months.” A lot of this is of course attributed to fears of COVID-19. “The Omicron variant and the vaccine response to it will continue to impact back-to-work efforts and higher wages are absolutely anticipated in 2022.”

As for wage increases for selected positions, for those that saw increases greater than 4%: