Compensation Trends in the Printing Industry 

Hiring and retaining workers isn’t just a problem for the printing industry — labor challenges persist across every state, in every sector, and every business type. Attracting — and keeping — the best workers means standing out against all the other businesses competing for the same talent. And that means having a solid compensation plan in place. 

But to know if your compensation plan is stand-out or lackluster means understanding the overall trends for the industry at large. And that is where Adriane Harrison, vice president of human resources, and Onamica Dhar, economist, PRINTING United Alliance, come in. 

First of all, Harrison sets the stage for the labor challenges right now, and that starts at the very foundation — where the people are.

“The fertility rate, which is really birth per women in in the United States has gone down since 2008, which means that our workforce numbers are declining," she noted. “Also immigration is declining, so we don't make up the lack of live births in our country with immigration anymore. We are working at a pretty hard deficit going into the long term, so you have to really strategically plan for your company to understand declining workforce numbers.

“We're an industry that has a lot of people who are aging out, and fewer people coming in. Baby boomers are leaving the workforce — not printing specifically, but the workforce — at 11,000 per day,” she continued. “The good news is in the face of an uncertain economy, people are less likely to leave. So your retention rates are going to go up right now because people are afraid that they're not going to get another job. And I see this as an opportunity for you to build a really good culture and then keep them there — that's really, really important.” 

One way to help build that culture she stresses is pay transparency. What was originally meant to even the playing field for women and minorities has become a valuable tool for any job seeker today. She stresses that every printer, no matter the size or niche, needs to publish internal and external job listings with the specific pay range up front. That can be painful, she noted, when you have existing people doing the same or similar jobs, meaning there could potentially be some pain points as salaries are adjusted to meet market standards, but if you want to keep the most in-demand people in your organization, it’s a critical step. 

“Seventy-eight percent of workers want pay transparency,” Harrison cites. “Sixty-eight percent of people will switch employers for greater pay transparency, even if the compensation is same. This is a really surprising statistic to me. People want to know where they are in the compensation range, and if they can't figure out where they are, it's like they're paddling a boat, but they don't know the destination. They want to know the destination. So pay transparency can really help you retain people.” 

Beyond the Paycheck 

Dhar broke down some of the interesting statistics from the latest Wages, Salaries, and Benefits report, including some of the benefit beyond the paycheck, and how it all comes together. Unsurprisingly, 96.5% of companies have paid holidays, and 95.3% have paid time off, which includes sick days and vacation time. Forty-one percent also offer paid personal days for things like voting, or bereavement leave. Medical insurance is also offered by 82.8% of printers, making these the most common benefits. 

For retirement, another popular benefit job seekers often look for, Dhar noted, “83.7% offer 401K, 13.5% have pensions, and 19.4% mentioned IRAs. On average, what percentage employers contribute is salary match. So, we find that about 8.1% company matches for 401K, where for pension, they match about 13.7%. For simple IRA they match 5.6%.” 

Bonus programs are another option for some printers, with around 58.1% of respondents to the survey offering some kind of bonus program, some structured to be department-wide, while others have a structure for individual rewards. Some companies also note they offer occasional company-wide bonuses, for example when a really big customer or job comes in, the organization will share some of that win around with everyone. 

Looking forward, Dhar also examined what printers are reporting they are anticipating for compensation in the coming year. 64.3% believe they will increase, or have plans to increase the base salary for their employees in the coming year. Cost of living and company performance are the two biggest reasons they gave, with the goal of attracting and retaining their top talent. 

Harrison and Dhar spoke at the recent PRINTING United Expo that was held in Orlando — keep an eye out for registration to next year’s event, which will be held in Las Vegas (Sept. 23-25), for more content like this, and to get deeper insights into the trends that drive the industry forward.