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Machinists making $100,000/yr?

adammil1

Titanium
Joined
Mar 12, 2001
Location
New Haven, CT
I found this article Desperately seeking Americans for manufacturing jobs - Feb. 16, 2012 I know it has been discussed to death here, but it still has me wondering. I even saw in the article that the owner's are starting to consider training applicants on the job for a change! How common is it for machinists to get $100K per year with out having to work 80hr weeks? Just wondering how many machinists with less than 4yrs experience are even seeing $60K per year pay with a 40hr week?

Normally with articles like this you tend to have to read between the lines to find out that really they want to pay a skilled guy $15/hr but are willing to let him work 80hr weeks if he would like to get up to $75K/year. All the time they then are complaining how they can't find workers. :crazy:

Are the wages finally starting to climb? How many machinists really can earn $60K with a 40hr week, and how many years experience does one need?

Heck if ever there was one better cut out to be a machinist it would have been me. Got my first lathe at 13yrs old. Have a full shop that I pay for via my discretionary income purely for fun. I would love to earn a living doing this type of work, yet over the years all of you on this site convinced me to stay far away from the profession, due to being paid so little. It also didn't help that every shop in town was closing when I was choosing a career either. With all said are the laws of supply and demand finally working out in the machinist's favor or is this article just another bunch of low paying shops complaining that those who would love to work for them already left to go earn more in other lines of work?
 
Split that 100k in 2 and you can give a good raise to 2 really good machinists...
The number of guys making that has to be pretty small, most shops can barely bill a 100K/yr for a machinist, so they'd better be making some real fancy stuff for "money unlimited corp ", or they have 1 guy running 5 machines.
I didn't even bill that for the past 3yrs, hoping this year might finally be back on track a bit.
 
$100 grand for a machinist that's on the shop floor making shit all day would be very unusual.

Maybe some guy that's works on highly specialized stuff and has been with the company for a long time.

Once you start adding in managing people and big responsibility for keeping a shop running, those sorts of wages are more common. But you said machinist, not plant manager, not aerospace programmer, not specialized fields.
 
Mitch Free, CEO of MFG.com :scratchchin: just a guess soon to offer a pay service to find machinist $100K jobs. Isn't everyone mentioned in the article in Georgia, home to MFG.com?
Can't be long till the MFG troll appears to tell us the virtue of the service.
 
Around northeast Indiana $18-$25/hr is common. I've heard the GM scale is higher than that, but I don't have first hand knowledge. They would likely be the highest paid in the area, not counting guys/gals working for themselves.
 
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I know afew at the shop I work in that made pretty darn close and 1 for sure who was in the 100k club

The guy who did worked well over 1200 hours of OT

the other guys that were close were in the 700 - 800 hours of OT

Of course in a shop that does repair work its not to abnormal to work ludicrous hours.
 
“Pay” or “compensated”, kind of different. With medical and retirement I’m probably there and that’s with under 500 hours OT a year. I’m in southern Indiana (near Cincinnati) so I would imagine guys working in areas of the country with higher costs of living ought to make more. I could be wrong. Earl.
 
I thought we were talking straight up pay and not OT or benefits added in?

If you count all that, than $100,000 probably isn't all that unusual.
 
And heres me, not even making $40 000.

Mind you theres a reason for that.... I work next to no overtime and have standing up rows with the alledged management

But we've all seen them, ads saying "work for us and earn loadsa money" and then you get there and it turns out to earn lots of money you need to work 6 10 hr nightshifts+ 4 hrs o/t per day and 8 hrs on a sunday

Then the company complains it cant find skilled staff to fill a contract while not mentioning they laid off 35 people last month when a previous contract ended.

I really enjoyed my time there even if I told them to stuff the job after 12 weeks :D

Boris

<<bored of low tolerance +/-0.002" stuff now
 
Programing swiss lathes gets 28/ hour around here thats only about 60,000 k
You really need a 2yr. engineer degree to touch 30's, although I know some mold makers pulling down mid 30's
 
It's just bs, like cheap ad copy from a placement firm; "some of our positions pay 60, 70, or 100,000 a year !!!"
Yeah, some, maybe, if you work 70+ hours a week, no benefits, pro-rated earnings based on temp assignment, etc.


G
 
I have a good friend who was making 65 grand with some benefits. He was programming 5 axis machining centers for a large shop that had about 100 employees. He got laid off though and is now doing the same job for 15 bucks an hour no benefits.
 
The shop I'm in has 25 machinists and at least 4 are making over 100k. Another guy is 6 years in and is around 75k. All these guys run only one machine each. But they work close to 65 hours. My shop also mostly cuts nickel and copper alloys.
 
I grossed $56k last year on piece work, strictly commissions from doing mill work on a bridgeport...I expect to do better this year if they can keep bringing in the work. I avg 50-54 hrs a week. The guy in the back room running 2 Devleigs does $200k a year....it's out there.
 
“Pay” or “compensated”, kind of different. With medical and retirement I’m probably there and that’s with under 500 hours OT a year. I’m in southern Indiana (near Cincinnati) so I would imagine guys working in areas of the country with higher costs of living ought to make more. I could be wrong. Earl.

Very important point, Earl.
I pay about $12,000 a yr. for my health ins.
I work for myself.

SM
 
I'm getting sick of these stupid articles trying to convince people everything is fine and dandy in the machining trade. You don't go into this work for the money, cause you'll be sadly disappointed. I enjoy it because it's a job that keeps be entertained and busy, and doesn't feel like a chore even after 60 hours a week. And if you actually want to earn the money that most professionals earn, better be ready to work plenty of 60 hour weeks. Forget about making plans for Friday night, cause you'll definitely be working Saturday if you want to have the privilege of living hand to mouth.

Having said that, for the very highly skilled machinists, who can get the job done the first time around, who are exceptionally gifted... There are shops that pay exceptionally well. 100K is not unheard of at very high end shops. Those shops tend to pay great, so they can offer the best quality work for high value customers. If parts are not available for some companies, they stand to loose TONS of money while lines are shut down waiting. Those types of customers know the machine shops that can guarantee the work, and actually mean it! I would imagine it's a very stressful role to fill, that many machinists simply aren't cut out for. None the less, their is always potential in most lines of work. Personally, I think production machinists have very stressful jobs, and those smart enough to master it would be capable to earn that kind of money in any profession they choose.
 
Shucks - I only knocked down $20K at my last job, and that was 60hr weeks min! :bawling:

(started under Reagan)


------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
I found this article Desperately seeking Americans for manufacturing jobs - Feb. 16, 2012 I know it has been discussed to death here, but it still has me wondering. I even saw in the article that the owner's are starting to consider training applicants on the job for a change! How common is it for machinists to get $100K per year with out having to work 80hr weeks? Just wondering how many machinists with less than 4yrs experience are even seeing $60K per year pay with a 40hr week?

Normally with articles like this you tend to have to read between the lines to find out that really they want to pay a skilled guy $15/hr but are willing to let him work 80hr weeks if he would like to get up to $75K/year. All the time they then are complaining how they can't find workers. :crazy:

Are the wages finally starting to climb? How many machinists really can earn $60K with a 40hr week, and how many years experience does one need?

Heck if ever there was one better cut out to be a machinist it would have been me. Got my first lathe at 13yrs old. Have a full shop that I pay for via my discretionary income purely for fun. I would love to earn a living doing this type of work, yet over the years all of you on this site convinced me to stay far away from the profession, due to being paid so little. It also didn't help that every shop in town was closing when I was choosing a career either. With all said are the laws of supply and demand finally working out in the machinist's favor or is this article just another bunch of low paying shops complaining that those who would love to work for them already left to go earn more in other lines of work?

Its wishful thinking, the 6 figure club for 40 hours a week will be out of reach for most machinists who draw a paycheck for sometime to come. Its a ceiling that wont be reached for sometime yet. Im talking an honest 100 grand for no more then the bare minimum 40 hours a week, no padding it out with benifits, OT and pension accumilated add up to........................

If you choose to work overtime it can be done but you've basically sold your soul for the year for that extra zero, I have routinely seen men top 140k$ gross and have cracked the 6th figure myself a few (very few) times, but your working every second weekend or more and coming in early, even in a shop that pays doubletime for overtime. You dont make 100K a year when you have to do that, you made 100k THAT YEAR, next year you might not have the steam to do it.

is this article just another bunch of low paying shops complaining that those who would love to work for them already left to go earn more in other lines of work

Most, if not ALL of those types or articles you read in the paper etc are just that, good shops that pay good wages rarely need to advertise for workers, and dont have time to whine to the news papers. They also don't dance around how much they pay an hour.
 








 
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