Need Incom/Salary Ideas for Waterjet Operator

I don't know anything about waterjet operators and what experienced ones get paid.

I do know that if I hire someone with "no experience" in the job that they are applying for, I will offer them something between minimum wage and $9.50/hr. depending on their background and how trainable they appear to be. Also, after 3 months they get an excellent benefit package with full health and dental.

If my employee is good and accurate and quick, he can expect a 5 to 10 percent raise each year until he are up to or slightly above industry scale for an experienced person.

What you need to do is get skilled. Take the job if it's offered, take some evening CNC and CAD classes, show your boss that you're teachable and will make a valuable employee. If he doesn't recognize it, move along after a year.

You can check with your local unemployment offices as they often track such data. However, Career Infonet does provide a somewhat out of data statistical information based at the state(s) levels. You would have to decide which area 'waterjet operator' fits. Select "Wages and Trends" from:

Joel. phx

Lane,

Salary. com shows a Machine Tool Cutting Operator in Seattle,(if the area is not right I apologize, I'm way over in Tennessee) having a median salary of about $29,000. This was just a quick and dirty search, I did not dig around to see if they actually list water jet cutters. Check the site out and you can probably get a lot better idea.

Regards, Jim

what part of Tennessee are you from Jim

Chattanooga.

It's also going to depend on wether you just a machine loader/unloader or if you are going to handle the machine programming itself. A skilled programmer/operator is going to be paid significantly more than someone that just knows how to load raw stock and start a canned routine.

Craig C. snipped-for-privacy@ev1.net

I agree with Craig 100%. I've seen waterjet operators that are extremely skilled, and able to very high quality work, get high tolerances, run more than one machine at once, draw up and program their parts in CAD, and squeeze every ounce of capability from the machines. For them, I would pay a lot more than someone who simply loads in a pre-made tool path, presses "begin", then unloads the parts without much thought or skill.

You may want to ask your question on the [waterjets] yahoo discussion group, where there are a lot of waterjet owners and operators at your disposal. See: