A little help please.

I am asking for some help from you people in an area I am about to enter.

I have been a white collar worker for the last 18 years. I made 83K when I got laid off.

I have always been working on metalworking items for my own use, making gates, fencing and other blacksmithing and welding projects.

I have been laid off due to company sell out for 5 months now and collecting unemployment of $318/week, take home of $1080 per month. And I HATE being unemployed but have not found another job after some very spirited searching.

I now have arranged an interview with a company. It is an entirely different kind of work. The work, for me, seems easy enough to adapt to. It will be a Foreman type job in a fencing company. It will consist of getting orders together and assuring the materials are loaded onto trailers for the field people to take to the site and install. There will be management responsibilities of hiring and firing the field workers. There will be determining the materials requirements and getting them loaded. There will be some travel (driving) to job sites. And I am sure there will be some other responsibilities that I am unaware of at this time. Not all that different from things I have done in the past. The "Work" is something I have no doubts about doing, the management of people and the ordering and arranging work is second nature to me.

My real question here is salary. It has been said by many people that to change careers you should expect a 50% pay cut. I can handle a 50% pay cut without any problems I can handle a 75% cut without too much stress. The problem comes in at looking at the business that has the opening. It is a single owner company, located outside of a small town with maybe 15-20 employees. They do seem busy all the time. A

50% paycut for me would be $40/hr. I am not sure what a company like this would pay a position like this. I do not want to tell them I want $40/hr and have them freak out since they expected to pay a lot less. But as usual, I want the highest pay I can get.

Can anyone here tell me what I should expect as a salary for a position of this type? I would like to get a feel for the range so I can negotiate more effectively. I can the negotiate higher salery if insurance is not provided or less if it is, etc......

I would be happy to hear from anyone that can shed some light on this topic.

Thanks,

Bob

Reply to
Bob
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Don't understand your math but maybe I don't have all the info. If you made about $80K then you were being paid about $40 per hour then assuming you were paid for something like a 40 hr week which is close to 2000 hrs per year. Your new rate is closer to $20 per hour or $40K per yr.

Billh

Reply to
billh

Sorry, I think I misinterpreted your post, you are trying to get close to your original rate of $40 not saying it is your 50% rate. Billh

Reply to
billh

When I used to fill out job apps, I would put "usual and customary" in the slot for expected pay. That left it open to negotiation.

Your problem is that the owner can just promote someone into that position, or hire off the street, and not pay a lot. Your extensive skills and experience are really not crucial to putting up fences.

And does the job have a ceiling? What can you expect to make in five years? Where would you be with the company in five years? Can you expect to at least get COLA raises?

Lots of questions.

Steve

Reply to
Desert Traveler

I would ask them about regular raises, how much could you expect after one year, 5 years, 10 years. That would give you some ideas. If they expect to keep you that long, they hopefully would know that they can't lowball you otherwise you would leave because of low pay. A lot of businesses will start a new employee with lower pay and raise it after 1-3 months after they see what you can do and how you work out. If you are a good worker, they would want to keep you. Rehiring is expensive for companies, if they have business they generally don't want to keep replacing people.

Hope this helps. Lane

Reply to
Lane

But at 83K he was making $40/hr. A normal work year is usually figured as

2080 hours (52 weeks * 40 hours) which works out to 83K at $40/hr.

Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com

"I'm not grown up enough to be so old!"

Reply to
Keith Marshall

I'm thinking he might not be all that good at the estimating part of the job..:-)

Reply to
ATP

OK, OK

I made a typo, sorry. However, that was all background information (maybe I should have just left it out but thought it would help.

Here is my one and only question: How much the company to be expecting to pay, per hour, for this position, no matter who applies?

Typo King,

bob

Reply to
Bob

BINGO!

Reply to
Desert Traveler

30 to 50K/yr, depending on the volume and nature of the work, and the region. You might be able to make 65K or more after a few years running a profitable operation. I'm extrapolating from facilities maintenance/project manager salaries in NY over the last 5 years. YMMV.
Reply to
ATP

With a fast growing number of companies now 'outsourcing',you will have plenty of company soon.IBM is planning to 'outsource' thousands of its white collar jobs to India where the wages are 1/10 that of a American worker,thanks to those two frauds NAFTA & GATT,you know,the ones that were supposed to 'create' millions of new American jobs.

Reply to
T

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