California Apparel News

CFA and 24Seven Release 2007 Salary Survey

A vice president of design can earn as much as $250,000 a year in Los Angeles. A store manager can make as much as $85,000. A chief financial officer’s top pay might be $400,000.

While salary figures like these might have been anecdotal knowledge passed from one human-resources executive to another, the industry trade group California Fashion Association and fashion recruitment firm 24Seven Inc. hope to shine a light on paychecks in the fashion industry with their recently released “California 2007 Salary Survey.”

The survey takes a comprehensive look at the paychecks in the Golden State’s fashion industry. It has been nearly a decade since apparel-industry salaries have been tracked in California. The 2007 survey gives the salary ranges of more than 102 jobs, from executive to janitor.

The survey confirms that the apparel business in California is a mature industry burgeoning with possibility, said IlseMetchek, the CFA’s executive director.

“We are not an entry-level industry,” she said. “We don’t underpay executive-level staff, and we are an industry of enormous opportunity.” The CFA authored the last survey of California’s fashion-industry paychecks in 1998.

For 24Seven President Celeste Goudas, the survey represents a chance to illuminate what has often been a murky subject. The survey’s results will help her clients navigate an increasingly competitive global marketplace for good workers. It also will help individual fashion-industry people figure out how to position themselves in salary negotiations. “Intelligence is everything,” Goudas said.

24Seven will continue to produce surveys charting fashion salaries. Next year, it will author a national survey compiling fashion-industry paychecks across the United States.By 2009, the firm will attempt an international survey.

California’s fashion-industry paychecks have grown fatter since 1998, according to Goudas, who estimated that California’s salaries were similar to the pay rates of New York’s fashion workers.

Executives at other fashion-industry recruitment firms agreed that the sizes of salaries have climbed in the past nine years.However, Marshall Mahl, a fashion-industry recruiter, said that pinning down exact numbers might be impossible.

“It’s like a floating target; it moves all over the place,” he said. Mahl’s Woodland Hills, Calif.–based Mahl & Associates Inc. has been specializing in fashion clients for more than 27 years.

According to Mahl, fashion companies each have their separate corporate cultures, and pay differs from firm to firm. Also, the job market is so competitive that many companies will pay top dollar for stellar executives and designers.

Mahl said that the survey is a valuable tool, but the industry needs more detail. “There’s never been anything like this in the apparel industry,” Mahl said.“But if there is a four-fold difference between low and high salaries in some categories, the benefits [of the survey] are muted.”

Still, Metchek said that it is possible to gage the top of the salary range in many cases.“There are caps,” she said, noting that payroll increases must be recouped somewhere along the value chain. “You cannot pass on increased costs unless retailers are willing to pay them.”

The surveyors mined information from 23 companies, all of them of successful and established enough to employ human-resources executives, according to Metchek. Fifty-two percent of the companies surveyed reported annual sales revenues greater than $150 million. Thirteen percent of the companies interviewed reported sales of less than $25 million.

The respondents represented different parts of the industry. Fifty-eight percent were apparel manufacturers. Retailers composed 32 percent of the respondents. The remaining 10 percent of companies surveyed were involved in fields such as textile development.

And while Mahl said that every apparel job is important, companies are always looking for top-notch financial executives and sales people.

According to a 24Seven representative, technical designers, flash developers and patternmakers are highly sought-after.

Brian Thaler, president of Los Angeles– based Scott-Thaler Associates, said that retailers are often looking for merchants and buyers. Manufacturers are seeking product developers and patternmakers. “The common denominator, what all companies are looking for, are innovators and people who don’t job hop,” he said.

The full survey results will be available to the public July 20 on 24Seven’s Web site (www.24seveninc.com).

Salary Watch

Fashion recruitment firm 24Seven Inc. and the California Fashion Association conducted the first salary survey of Los Angeles’ fashion industry since 1998.

The following is some of the survey’s results, ranging from low to high, for different jobs in Los Angeles’ apparel industry.

VP Design Low: $100,000; Average: $186,875; High: $250,000Designer Low: $60,000; Average: $81,914; High: $105,000Textile Designer Low: $45,000; Average: $60,000; High: $75,000Knitters/Sewers Low: $41,600; Average: $41,600; High: $41,600VP Production Low: $90,000; Average: $154,557; High: $225,000Production Manager Low: $55,000; Average: $80,986; High: $105,000Production Asst. Low: $28,800; Average: $41,867; High: $80,000Fabrics & Trim Buyer Low: $45,000; Average: $64,725; High: $90,000VP Merchandising Low: $170,000; Average: $217,143; High: $250,000Div. Merch. Manager Low: $200,000; Average: $212,500; High: $225,000Asst. Merchandiser Low: $45,000; Average: $51,750; High: $67,000VP Sales Low: $80,000; Average: $180,594; High: $250,000Sales/Acct. Exec Low: $87,000; Average: $109,650; High: $150,000Brand Manager Low: $80,000; Average: $115,000; High: $140,000Showroom Manager Low: $34,000; Average: $37,467; High: $40,000Controller/CFO Low: $105,000; Average: $202,111; High: $400,000CIO Low: $65,000; Average: $178,833; High: $350,000PDM Administrator Low: $80,000; Average: $111,333; High: $156,000Shipping Manager Low: $60,000; Average: $72,333; High: $85,000Store Manager Low: $40,000; Average: $54,000; High: $85,000