The top five job aspects are the same as they were four years ago, but #1 used to be 'Solving challenging problems.'
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Nearly half of all respondents four years ago said that 'Too much bureaucracy' was the least satisfying job aspect of their job. (Source: All charts R&D Magazine)
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Researchers work an average 45.7 hr/wk, not including work that they take home which adds another 5.9 hr/wk to their workload.
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Respondents to a recent Career Survey said that they received a 3.8% average salary increase over the past year.
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Most researchers receive various types of medical insurance, but the number receiving it is down about seven percentage points from 2000.
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Only 10% of the researchers surveyed indicated that they would like to do some other type of work.
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Nearly two-thirds of the survey respondents said they would be working for the same company in five years.
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Non-money-based job aspects continue to be areas that concern researchers most about their jobs.
Researchers are mostly satisfied with their jobs, careers, and salaries, but the issues that concern them have shifted slightly over the past five years.
Scientists and engineers (S&E) working in R&D facilities are getting paid more than they were a year ago and what they like and dislike about their jobs has stayed pretty much on track with their opinions of four years ago, according to two new reader surveys performed by R&D Magazine .
The first, the 2004 annual salary survey, recently completed by Abbott, Langer & Associates, Crete, Ill., and R&D Magazine , reveals continued increases for R&D directors and researchers, but a significant drop in average technician salaries. These results are presented in conjunction with those of the 2004 R&D Career Satisfaction survey, our first career assessment survey in nearly four years.
Changing landscape
The period in between our July 2000 and January 2004 career surveys has seen a dramatic change in the R&D environment with numerous downsizings, an economic recession, and a continued exodus of manufacturing and technology jobs from U.S. to foreign locations. In 2000, the issues discussed involved how to hire employees for what seemed like a severe S&E shortage for the booming U.S. technology sector. At that time, more than two-thirds of our readers found it difficult to fill vacant S&E positions.
Over the past three years, however, nearly half of our survey respondents have seen their organizations downsize their R&D staffs by an average of 16%. Only 18% of the respondents' organizations experienced R&D staff increases and then only by slightly less than 10%. More than a third of the respondents' organizations had no significant staffing changes over the past three years.
While staffing changes have been a significant factor of the R&D environment and worker productivity, according to U.S. Dept. of Labor statistics, productivity continues to see annual increases of 4% to 7%. The workload of S&E and how they feel about their responsibilities does not appear to have significantly changed from that of our 2000 survey.
The average number of hours worked per week (46 hr) is statistically the same as it was four years ago, and even the number of hours worked at home (6 hr/wk) is about the same. Slightly less than a third of the participants said that they felt they were overworked, exactly the same as four years ago (about 40% of the women respondents said they were overworked, but they represented just 13% of the total responses, thereby having a smaller effect on the overall average). In all, more than 80% of the respondents (82% men and 69% women) indicated that they were satisfied with the amount of work that they were expected to do. Job demands only interfered with researcher's personal lives for about 30% of those polled ('often' and 'most of the time' responses), the same relationship now as in our 2000 survey with similar results for both men and women.
One area with a noted change from previous years was in the area of benefits received by researchers from their employers. Overall the rankings of the benefits received by researchers were mostly the same, with insurance, paid vacation, education reimbursement, and 401K plan participation at the top of the list. But the number of respondents receiving these benefits uniformly dropped by 5 to 10 percentage points in all areas except 401K. Those receiving medical, dental, life, disability, vision, and pension insurance plans saw uniform declines in participation. The bottom part of the benefit plans (stock options, child care, profit sharing, club memberships, and sabbaticals) also saw across the board declines in participation. There were no noticeable response differences between men and women respondents in this area.
Employee fulfillment
Researchers have continued their 'love affair' with their work in our recent survey with about two-thirds of the respondents indicating that they like it "best" or "very much," a slightly higher rating than that obtained in our 2000 career survey. Only about 10% of those surveyed said that they would like other types of work better. The gender gap appeared in this area as well as others as almost twice as many women researchers indicated that they would like other work better than that of a researcher.
Even stronger results for researchers' satisfaction with their current position were seen in the survey with only 11% of the total respondents saying they were dissatisfied with their position, and 88% saying that they were satisfied with their positions. Again, more than 20% of the women researchers disliked their current positions.
In the area of job recognition, about two thirds of survey participants said that their employers offered researchers the same rewards and opportunities to advance that they offered their managers. Less than half of the women researchers indicated that this was true. About 75% of the respondents (78% men, 60% women) indicated that their employers were open to new ideas and independent thinking. And nearly the same ratios were found in responses to the employer effectively communicating organizational goals to the researcher.
A significant improvement in the area of the employer's stated commitment to R&D to that of previous surveys was noted in this year's results. While only 56% of the responses to the 2000 survey indicated a stated employer commitment to R&D, that response increased to 80% this year for both men and women respondents.
Overall salaries improving
R&D Magazine 's salary survey revealed that researchers received an average of 3.8% salary increases (3.8% men, 3.4% women) over the past year. The exception to this trend is the compensation for R&D technicians, which averaged about a 15% decrease in just one year, mostly focused on those technicians without a four-year college degree.
R&D directors and managers saw the largest increases with an average of 14.2% to $111,650/yr, while researchers increased about 7% to $71,400/yr. Salaries for R&D directors, researchers, and technicians alike continued to increase across the experience scale, even increasing by about 10% from the 25 to 29 yr range to the 30 yr or more. In previous surveys, salaries were seen to decline by as much as 35% for R&D directors once they passed the 30-yr experience range.
Where would you like to be in 5 Years
Salaries for researchers working in basic and applied research areas appeared to demand about a 10% premium over that of researchers working in development areas. There was an even stronger disparity for R&D directors' and managers' salaries in these areas, while salaries for technicians did not appear to change at all for any of these areas.
Geographical salary relationships continued the strong attraction of the Mountain and Pacific states for higher salaries than seen in previous surveys, although some of the specifics have changed. In previous surveys, salaries for R&D directors and managers varied by as much as 20% from the Pacific/Mountain states to that of their counterparts in Central/Southern states (Northeastern states fell somewhere in the middle). This salary gap now seems to have lessened to about 10%, still favoring the Western states.
Salaries for researchers in previous surveys saw Western state disparities in the 10% range compared to their counterparts in Central/Southern states. That difference has now increased to the 15% range, again favoring the West. For technicians, while the highest paying area is the Pacific states with an average $45,700/yr salary, there does not appear to be a clear trend for that with any other geographical area.
Future plans
How Much Are You Worth? (2003 average annual salaries, U.S. dollars)
Technician
Researcher
Director
Engineering
30,460
70,919
113,182
Aerospace
n/a
79,543
98,216
Chemical
31,507
64,196
115,796
Electrical
40,374
72,949
128,626
Materials
38,091
67,694
97,000
Mechanical
39,302
73,588
98,405
Software
32,483
75,565
116,543
Physical Science
37,483
73,275
107,384
Astronomy
36,359
93,375
149,407
Chemistry
37,532
63,012
109,534
Electrical
40,374
72,949
128,626
Physics
28,901
85,561
102,969
Life Science
37,873
65,764
102,614
Biotechnology
NA
70,272
100,000
Other
34,892
62,444
103,594
Source: Abbott, Langer & Assoc., R&D magazine
Educated Researchers Are Well Paid (2003 salary, U.S. dollars, percentage change from 1999)
Technician
Researcher
Director
No College
35,423 (-8.6%)
63,380 (9.7%)
NA
Some College
26,858 (-23.9%)
53,067 (-18.8%)
NA
2-yr degree
37,979 (-9.3%)
64,656 (3.4 %)
115,796
BS
37,140 (9.4 %)
65,515 (10.2 %)
105.077 (37.7%)
MS
33,188 (-2.3 %)
69,787 (3.2 %)
108.026 (29.0%)
PhD
NA
85,586 (5.8 %)
118,193 (12.2%)
Source: Abbott, Langer & Assoc., R&D magazine
If you could work for any company, what company would it be? Respondents to this question replied uniformly to Fortune 500 manufacturing companies because of their perception that they were leaders in R&D, had the ability to develop cutting-edge technology, conduct cross-disciplinary R&D, had a global outlook, always dynamic, and had a commitment to technology, among many others.
Despite this "greener on the other side of the fence attitude, nearly three-quarters of the respondents still said that they would recommend their current employer to a friend as a good place to work. If looking for another job, however, the respondents would look to other employers where 1) the financial rewards were better (41%), 2) there was the ability to work independently (38%), 3) the location was desirable (31%), 4) there was an ability to solve challenging problems (28%), and 5) there was job security (26%).
These overall rankings were similar to those obtained in the 2000 survey, but the overall values were down by about 15 percentage points, likely indicating a stronger desire to stay in their present location rather than move to a new job.
