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 n Dec. 1, 2008, the National Bureau of Economic Research reported that the U.S. economy had been in a recession for more than a year. And as of late spring 2009, the number of unemployed persons in America had grown by 5.3 million in just 12 months, raising the overall unemployment rate by 2.4 percentage points.
So it should come as no surprise that the results of our 2009 Corporate EVENT Salary Survey are less than celebratory. According to the data, the average U.S. event professional’s salary increased by a mere seven-tenths of a percent. But while that increase — from an average of $62,444 in 2008, to an average of $62,925 in 2009 — seems relatively insignificant, it’s better than nothing at all.
Unfortunately, while those figures represent the aggregate average, not all event professionals were quite so lucky. In fact, only 46 percent of survey respondents reported any increase in salary since 2008, and 10 percent reported suffering salary decreases in the past 12 months, with most receiving cuts of 3 to 10 percent. A small handful of unlucky event professionals reported cuts of 20 percent or more, citing company-wide salary reductions as the primary culprit.
Furthermore, the average “additional compensation” figure (which includes overtime pay, profit sharing, performance bonuses, etc.) saw a nearly 3-percent drop from last year, practically offsetting the less than 1-percent increase in base salary. All told, average total compensation (including base salary and additional compensation) totaled $71,698 in 2008, and $71,936 in 2009, for a total difference of less than $250.
On a positive note, the gender gap appears to be narrowing. Male event professionals still report higher salaries than female event professionals ($73,482 compared to $59,991), with women making roughly 82 cents for every dollar collected by their male counterparts. But that figure compares favorably with last year’s results, which found that for every dollar male respondents earned, female respondents took home only 75 cents.
Despite the negligible increase over last year’s averages, a near majority of respondents feel their salary is appropriate, relative to their job responsibilities. Granted, 53 percent of event professionals feel they are underpaid. But the ratio of satisfied to unsatisfied respondents is identical to last year’s results, indicating that regardless of the essential plateau of event professional’s salaries, most are happy to still be employed, and hopeful that things will turn around soon.E
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ABOUT THE SURVEY
Corporate EVENT’s 2009 Salary Survey was conducted by TriMax Direct, a research firm based in St. Paul, MN. A total of 901 event professionals, with direct involvement in their companies’ event-marketing efforts, completed the online survey after receiving an e-mail invitation to participate. Event professionals were offered a chance to win one of three $200 cash prizes as an incentive to complete the survey. Results are reliable and statistically valid at +/- 1.88 percent at the 95-percent confidence interval.
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