AS/400 salaries continue upward trend
By Mark Baard
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The results of a new AS/400 and PC salary survey are out, and the numbers look good for managers and programmers.
According to Nate Viall and Associates (NVAA), a research and recruiting firm based in Des Moines, Iowa, managers now pull in an average of $74,100 annually, up 5.6 percent from 1999. Those in rural areas reported a 7.6 percent increase in their wages, 3 percent more than their urban counterparts. The news for female managers is also good: Their earnings shot up 7.2 percent since last year.
Salaries for programmers, meanwhile, grew to $51,500 (up 6.8 percent). And programmers in the top 20 percent can boast incomes of at least $62,800 per year -- $8,700 more than they made in 1998.
But the NVAA report identifies some "counter trends" that threaten to erode the progress made by programmers. While job turnover among junior programmers fell 38 percentage points to 19 percent this past year, data collected since April 2000 shows a sharp reversal in that trend (up 15 points).
NVAA president Nate Viall also says managers are tightening their belts and falling short of their hiring goals for 2000. "Their intent to hire may be high," he says, "but their actual job openings for May are nowhere near that level. And it's not clear how quickly they will accelerate."
The Information Technology Association of America says 84,000-plus IT positions will go unfilled by the end of this year. Viall says, "Even if that figure is off by a factor of two, it still represents an enormous amount of opportunities, and that should drive salaries even higher."
AS/400 professionals can purchase copies of the NVAA spring 2000 report by e-mailing email@example.com. An abbreviated version of the survey is available for $20, and comprehensive regional and individual state reports start at $49.
Baard is a contributing editor in Milton, Mass.