As always, I want to thank all of our readers who completed part one of our annual survey. This survey provides an extremely valuable benchmark of industry wages, certifications, and continuing education initiatives, and we wouldn’t be able to put this together every year without your help. We appreciate your input more than we can say!

It’s interesting to see how the statistics change from year to year (although that is not exactly surprising, I suppose, given the change our industry deals with on a regular basis!) One thing that stood out to me immediately was that while the average salaries of mail center managers and supervisors declined compared to last year’s results, the average wages of several non-managerial positions increased. Perhaps those in the higher-up positions are retiring on a regular basis, making room for others to assume their positions (often at a slightly lower salary level than their predecessors). Meanwhile, in order to attract and retain the non-managerial staff, higher wages potentially are being offered. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues in future years.