Salary Observations

Staffing Market Overview And Salary Trends

McCall regularly responds successfully to recruitment requests across a full spectrum of position descriptions (from entry-level to executive), and we staff across diverse sectors including non-profit organizations. However, since 2008 the area of client demand has taken us back to our core ‘roots’ in administrative-support staffing….with a definite emphasis on temporary staffing demand.

Temp-to-hire transactions fell off in 2009 but are only recently returning to pre-recession levels; however, they are more often ‘surprise hires’ as opposed to being listed with our firm as a “temp-to-hire” job posting in advance of the assignment.

Most of the temporary assignments listed with us are ‘fill-in’ for existing positions; they range from the very short-term to very, very long-term assignments (lasting several years). A significant number of assignments are project staffing, often utilizing several of our temporary employees simultaneously. When the temporary listings are “add-to-staff”, it appears they are necessary to relieve the stress on employees who have survived lay-offs and find themselves in multi-position roles.

Naturally, the candidate pool for temporary workers has grown exponentially during this recession as unemployed workers with experience above the level of the job demand vie for the more junior jobs. This means that employers could be getting much higher qualified candidates at rates much lower than those same workers once worked…as much as 50% lower in some cases. In the past ‘over-qualified’ temporary employees were considered ‘better’ qualified. Unique to this market, our client’s requirements for temporary assignments are increasingly more exacting and specific than they were in the past; often our clients want our referrals to have worked in a specifically comparable capacity in their recent jobs (not more and not less…but at that very same level as their current temporary requisition).

As a result of the foregoing staffing-market conditions, the salary observations we offer below are for administrative support positions; they are based on our day-to-day activities of temporary, temp-to-hire, direct-hire and payroll-service positions.

21st century review

After incredible inflation during the ‘Dot-Com Boom’ and the Y2K run-up ending in 2001, salaries for support staff leveled off and then began to decline marginally from 2001 until 2004, when they stabilized. There was actually a renewed inflation beginning in early 2005 as competition for candidates increased (perhaps due to a diminished supply because so many candidates moved from the area after the ‘Dot-Com Bust’). The growth was more gradual than it had been during 1998-2000, but it was observable from month to month.

Then, in the 3rd quarter of 2008, we observed that the growth in direct-hire recruitment compensation started to falter. By early 2009 direct-hire activity was decreasing while temporary activity picked up; compensation for direct-hires was falling pretty much across the board. By the mid 2009, direct-hire recruiting salaries for administrative support positions was comparable to salaries in1997-1998.

Overall, comparing compensation between the last quarter of 2008 with the first quarter of 2010, administrative support recruitment compensation has fallen 15% to 33% depending upon the job level, the skill-set and experience requirements. Interestingly, executive and management salaries for the few positions we have received that are over $100,000, started to falter and fall before those for administrative support personnel; we are receiving resumes from managers and executives and are willing to accept as much as a 40% to 50% drop in order to get back to work.

Accounting support positions did not trend down as much as it did for recruiting salaries being offered for executive assistants, administrative assistants, project coordinators, data entry specialists and receptionists. Except for the recent college accounting graduate who may garner marginally less than in 2008, the accounting support compensation remains pretty stable and comparable to 2008. There hasn’t been growth but there certainly hasn’t been the erosion that has occurred for administrative support personnel.

For the most part temporary wages remain at the same level as years’ past. However the big difference is that the demand trend has been toward lower-level assignment positions ($12 an hour to $17 an hour) than the higher level administrative support temp positions (typically paying $18 to $30 an hour). In the past the demand was pretty constant for both levels of administrative assignment employees.

Compensation ranges are extremely wide

Employers looking for new employees are able to lower salary overhead by taking advantage of the lower recruiting salaries when hiring from the ranks of the unemployed. However, when recruiting employed candidates (who were hired at higher compensation), for the most part that higher-level compensation will have to be met. The result is a much wider recruitment range than in past versions of this page of our website.

Benefit Expectations

The generousity of benefit offerings are not as important to the unemployed candidate while of course they remain very much a factor when recruiting an employed candidate.

Medical coverage is of course a recruiting ‘hook’. However the amount of the co-pay is much less a factor when dealing with unemployed candidates who are simply happy to have a company group-policy available to them.

Similarly, we have observed that vacation and PTO time requirements have become an insignificant factor for the unemployed. Not surprisingly, the currently employed recruits want to negotiate for something similar to what they are currently enjoying.

What lies ahead?

Our crystal-ball is not without blind spots! But, based upon media reports as well as the a perceived desperation on the part of an unprecedented number of candidates coming to us for work, we believe that the imbalance of supply and demand portends a very slow return to recruitment compensation normalcy. As companies start hiring the more competitive candidates, we expect to see some minor growth in temporary wages but we do not foresee a significant return to 2007-2008 compensation for direct-hire jobs for at least 12 to 18 months. We could envision that 2007 levels of compensation may not be fully returned until the demand/supply factor is impacted when the ‘Baby Boom Generation’ starts to leave the workplace in significant numbers (something that is likely delayed due to this recession’s toll on retirement savings)!

In the past, there have usually been real periods employment turnover coming out of recessions as eager unemployed candidates ‘jumped’ at early offers and then looked for “a better deal”. The length and depth of this recession gives us the impression that people returning to work are going to be less ready to leave the new jobs that seem secure.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!
Trust the experienced McCall Staffing Team to use OUR cumulative experience and market knowledge to help job seekers and employers find a reasonable and market-driven balance for mutual long-term investment.

• Administrative Support Hiring Ranges

  McCall is pleased to share our observations about the compensation ranges typical for administrative support staffing.

  • Salaries are annualized
  • Hourly wages for Temporary Assignments can usually be approximated by dividing the annual salary by 2. That said, as mentioned above, competition for temporary assignment is at an all-time high so that in fact the hourly may be less than that historical computation.
  • In 2000 stock-options were important to recruitment decisions. As the 'fall-out' of business failures has hit home, many candidates increasingly concentrate on base salary and job risk factors.

  
  

  	Years Experience
  Title	6+	3-5	1-3	less than 1
  Office Mgr (no admin support role)	$55-80K	---	---	---
  Office Mgr with admin support duties	$55-75K	$50-70K	$35-55K	---
  EXEC & ADMIN ASSISTANTS
  To CEO/Director/Principal	$55-100K	$48-75K	$40-60K	----
  To VP	$50-72K	$50-70K	$45-60K	$36-50K
  To Dept/Group	$50-70K	$50-63K	$38-60K	$35-45K
  Legal Secretary/Assistant	$65-85K	$50-72K	$44-58K	$34-48K
  HR Assistant	$60-70K	$47-70K	$38-60K	$34-45K
  AA/Customer Service	$50-60K	$45-60K	$30-55K	$28-42K
  Data Entry (typically an hourly, temporary project)	$15-16.00/hr	$15-16.00/hr	$13-15.00/hr	$12-15.00/hr
  RECEPTIONISTS
  No Growth Potential	$32-50K	$32-45K	$28-40K	$26-34K
  Growth Potential after 1-2 yrs.	$37-50K	$32-50K	$28-40K	$26-32K