Brief Summary of 2004 STC Salary Survey Results

The Huntsville/North Alabama chapter of the STC (Society for Technical Communication) has sponsored a yearly salary survey since 1999. Dr. Rose Norman, Chapter Employment Chair, administers the survey and survey analysis. The participants are those listed in the North Alabama STC employment notification database, which includes chapter STC members, job seekers, and many non-members. Participants are asked to forward the survey to any technical communicator. A monetary prize is offered for those who wish to participate in the drawing. Since 2001, this has been an online survey. This year we posted the survey online from October 13 to October, 22, 2004.

Methods.  To solicit participation, we sent emails to a distribution list of 257 technical communicators in the Huntsville/North Alabama area describing this year’s survey and giving instructions to access the survey online. The participants had the option of requesting a hard copy of the survey to mail in instead of participating online (only one chose the hard-copy option). Participants could also enter a contest to win either $100.00 or a membership in the STC ($150.00 value). This year's winner was Jason Shoemate, whose name was drawn at the Christmas party December 16. 

Results.  We received usable surveys from 146 people (surveys that did not report gross annual salary had to be discarded).  We received 125 usable responses from full-time salaried workers.  Most analysis is based on these respondents.

Analysis of all Responses (146 total, both full-time and part-time): 

HNA STC Membership: 40 (27%) were STC HNA members.
Gender:  116 were women (79%)
Part-time:  21 were part-time workers (all but two of which were women).

Analysis of Full-time Salaried Responses (125 total)

Gender: The majority were women (62%).  Women were similarly represented in the 2004 National STC Salary Survey (66%). Male respondents increase from 26 responses in 2003 to 38 responses in 2004.  

* Median national data is for Alabama (zip codes beginning with 35).  All other national
data are means for the United States and so may incorporate regional differences.       

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