JUNE 2003 SALARY SURVEY
FOREWORD

To the 93 APEGGA Permit Holders and other Employers who contributed to this year’s Salary Survey and to others who have contributed in the past, we thank you for making APEGGA’s salary survey a high-demand product on an ongoing basis.  We also appreciate your adaptation to its changing requirements, enabling the survey to maintain its value as trends and needs develop.

Our main publication - The Value of Professional Services June 2003 - has continued the new classification of employee introduced in 2002 – Co-op / Intern Students - in response to requests from Salary Survey users and participants. This is also the third year in which the industry category – Advanced Technologies – has been included in the data tables.

The survey is intended to provide guidelines for both Alberta Employers and individual Members of the three professions (P. Eng, P. Geol, P. Geoph) in setting salary and other payroll and benefits rates and programs. 

APEGGA believes individual members are responsible for establishing with their employer the level of remuneration to be received in return for professional services provided. Using the information in the Value of Professional Services plus any other information accessible to you, you can judge if you are adequately paid given your industry sector and the economic activity within that sector, working conditions, responsibility, performance, utilization and situation.

Members work in a wide variety of organizations and carry out tasks which vary just as greatly. It is therefore impossible for the Association to judge whether any given member should get or be given a salary increase. However, to stay at par in terms of purchasing power, you could expect an increase equal to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increase in your geographic area. If you are eligible for a performance increase and/or responsibility increase, these could be in addition to the CPI.

Program effectiveness is dependent on the integrity of the data in this booklet and your ability to incorporate it with other information obtained to provide your full compensation picture. It is recognized that not all employment sectors will be readily identified within the sample job descriptions and corresponding rates. However, using these as guidelines should enable you to arrive at a reasonable relationship between your situation and industry equivalents.

With the sustained support of members and employers, the Association believes this program will continue to be a positive influence in helping to maintain a reasonable balance between professional quality services, working conditions and remuneration.