THE STATE OF THE INDUSTRY How did this last year treat mailers and their organizations? Part one of our annual survey takes a look at wages, certifications, and more.
By Amanda Armendariz
I
always enjoy going through the survey results and analyzing the direction of trends year after year, and this year was no different. Not surprisingly, COVID-19 has impacted mail centers quite significantly, both in terms of personnel and in terms of continuing education opportunities; the National Postal Forum being (rightfully) canceled certainly was a big blow to the industry, as that is the main event that mail professionals attend for training. On the bright side, wages for all positions increased compared to the past two years, and the average length of time in the industry increased as well. That’s always an encouraging sign, since we know that there has been a lot of talk regarding people retiring and it being difficult to fill the ranks with younger people. So the longer people can stick around in the mail center, the better (and I’m sure the increased wages help keep people around). As always, a huge “thank you” to everyone who completed this survey; we really do appreciate it! In our November/ December issue, we’ll have part two of our survey, which examines attitudes and opinions towards the current happenings in our industry (like declining mail volume, the new Postmaster General’s operational changes, etc.). We look forward to sharing those results with you, as well!
Number of Full-Time Employees 4% Supervised 4% 8% 0-5 6-10 11-15
60%
24%
16-20 20+
As is usually the case in our annual surveys, the majority of our respondents’ mail center managers supervise five or fewer employees. However, the number of managers who supervise 20+ employees went down quite significantly compared to last year.
Certification
5%
CMDSM
Mail Center Managers
EMCMP
Male vs. Female
56%
44%
The percentage of mail center managers who are female went down slightly compared to the 48% from last year. 16
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2020 | MailingSystemsTechnology.com
23%
8.51%
10% CMM
A bright spot in this year’s survey: The number of mail center managers holding certifications increased dramatically. Last year, only 2% held the CMM certification, so this year’s number represents a five-fold increase. Now, we always need to make the disclaimer that it’s not necessarily people from the same companies completing our surveys every year, which could explain some of the year-over-year differences, but still, this increase is highly encouraging. Hopefully, we will continue to see these numbers continue to rise!