Foster Business Library


Salary Resources


Foster Business Library research guides are aimed at University of Washington students, faculty, and staff, highlighting resources available to them; users not currently affiliated with the university may be unable to access some of these resources.
In general, the compensation of top officers of U.S. public companies is public knowledge, since information about compensation must be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Likewise, the salaries of public employees and officials is usually also public, though the information may not be easy to find. For employees in specific companies, however, below the level of S.E.C. requirements, salary information is rarely available. Companies rarely disclose pay ranges for their staff, on their webpages or in their job advertisements. Instead, what is available is more general information by type of job, area, and by industry, from a variety of online and printed sources.
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Foster Business Library Databases:

The Foster Business Library offers an extensive collection of over fifty databases on its homepage; see under Databases. For a complete list of Foster databases, see the List of All Business Databases. Access to these databases from off campus requires that you first go to the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. These resources may not be accessed from off campus except by those with a valid UW Net ID and password. For more information on Foster business databases, click Databases, A-Z. For information on which Foster business databases to use, see the Database Index. For information on accessing Foster databases from off campus, see Database Access. For guidelines on responsible database usage, see Database Usage.

  • Conference Board Business Knowledge Research:   On the Foster Business Library homepage, under List of All Business Databases, at the bottom of the list of Databases. This searchable database of full-text research reports, published by the Conference Board, is focused on major issues in business and economics. For a 37-page PDF cumulative index to this database, click here.

    See their research under the topic of Compensation. See also their Annual Studies section, one of which covers Executive Compensation, with data on Top Executive Compensation, for the "five highest-paid executives in over 2,800 companies in 14 major industry sectors" for more than five years, as well as for director compensation.

  • EIU Online:   One of the world's top sources for country intelligence, the Economist Intelligence Unit employs 500 analysts who research almost 200 nations. The Foster Business Library provides access to their Country Profiles, Country Reports, Country Commerce, and Country Finance in print editions and this database provides online access to these publications, often in both HTML and PDF formats.

    See Country Commerce for over fifty countries and, in particular, the Human Resources chapter, with its section on wages and fringe benefits. As an example, see their 2004 chapter for the United States. Older editions of Country Commerce are also available in print, in the Foster Business Library reference collection, with the call number HG4538 .I663, often with information on average monthly salaries for ten or twelve benchmark positions that is not available in the online version.

  • Hoovers Online:   Under Business Databases on the Foster Business Library homepage. Hoovers Online offers information about 14,000 public and private companies worldwide, with links to company homepages and annual reports, charts, company capsule, competitors, divisions, earnings, financials, Fortune and Forbes rankings, history, industry information, insider trading, mission statements, news links, press releases, officers, patents, products, SEC filings, splits, subsidiaries, etc.

    U.S. companies in Hoovers Online with a company overview include extensive listings of top company officers and their salaries and bonuses; look in the People category. As an example, see the People section for Starbucks. Not all companies in this database have company overviews, however, and most non-U.S. companies do not have salary information.

  • Lexis-Nexis Academic:   To find company information, go to Business and then to Company Financial where you can obtain financial and other data for companies. Information is available from twenty different sources (each of which must be searched separately). SEC filings, particularly company 10K annual reports, are a particularly rich source of company as well as industry information.

    Go to Business and then to Company Profiles; search by company name and the word Compensation to obtain compensation data on company officers and board members, from the U.S. Executive Compensation Database. Another source for compensation information is proxy statements. Go to SEC Filings, then to the SEC 10-K Reports pulldown menu to access SEC Filings - Proxy Statements; look for the Executive Compensation section.

  • Statistical Universe:   Under Business Databases on the Foster Business Library homepage. Statistical Universe is an index to statistical data in commercial, international and U.S. government publications. Try the Power Tables for quick access to tables of data in GIF format.

    A keyword search for Earnings produced over 1,000 tables. A more specific search for Earnings, limited to annual and by sex produced over 400 tables.

    Web resources:

    Unlike library databases, Web resources are available wherever you have web access; they do not require that you access them via the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. When using web resources, be sure to evaluate the credibility of these resources. For a subject index to web resources, see Business Resources on the Web on the Foster Business Library homepage.

    General:

  • Wikipedia:   This free online user-created and maintained encyclopedia can be a good starting point for an orientation to a topic. See their entry for the notion of Salary.

    International:

  • National Statistical Agencies:   National statistical agencies are excellent sources for official demographic, trade, economic, and financial information; links to the statistical agencies of 120 countries are included on this U.S. Census Bureau site. Many countries offer an English language version of their national statistical agency websites. Many sites have a search engine which may facilitate finding wage data. As an example, see the Wages & Salaries section for Germany.

  • Occupational Wages Around the World:   This database, provided by the National Bureau of Economic Research, contains occupational wage data for 161 occupations in over 150 countries, from 1983 to 1999, based in statistics from the International Labour Office. The data is not easily accessed but an explanation of the database may be found in the NBER working paper entitled Wages Around the World (41 pages in PDF format).

  • PayScale, Inc.:   A Seattle-based company, "PayScale, Inc. was founded to provide individuals and employers around the world with compensation information that accurately reflects the unique attributes of every person, every position, and every organization. Our products provide an unparalleled level of compensation information that helps our customers determine a job's true market value." This company claims that it "owns the largest online database of employee salary information in the world and has a patent-pending methodology for compiling and aggregating wage data." While the site is primarily oriented towards providing fee-based reports, free content available.

    National:

  • CEO Compensation:   Annually, Forbes magazine provides executive pay tables for the heads of the 500 biggest companies in America, usually in the mid-May issue. This list is arranged alphabetically by company name, with rank among 500 CEO's, salary and bonus, and one year change; other compensation and stock gains; total salary plus compensation; and stock owned by each CEO. Some of their charts also include a letter grade for the CEO's "efficiency."

  • Executive Compensation Report:   Another good source for information on top executive compensation is this section in the Washington Post, with a ranking of the top 2004 executive compensation packages.

  • Occupational Outlook Handbook:   This Bureau of Labor Statistics' site offers information on 250 occupations, including a brief section for each occupation on earnings. As an example, see earnings for Top Executives. A print copy of this publication is also available in the Foster Business Library reference collection, call number HF5381.A1 O36.

  • National Compensation Survey:   This Bureau of Labor Statistics site offers information on mean hourly earnings and weekly hours for 480 individual occupations, for metropolitan areas in the U.S, as well as Occupational Employment Statistics including recent data on numbers employed and mean annual wage by industry, as well as by state, such as Washington.

  • WageWeb:   This site provides some free, fairly current salary data for over 160 benchmark positions in the fields of human resources, administration, finance, information management, engineering, healthcare, sales-marketing and manufacturing.

  • Salaries by Title:   This Wall Street Journal site provides salary data for many job categories, with accompanying articles and tables. Go to Salary and Hiring Info, for data such as that for Chief Financial Officer in Seattle.

  • JobStar Salary Information:   This site, sponsored by the Bay Area Library & Information System, has a California orientation but offers both general salary surveys and profession-specific salary surveys in four dozen fields.

  • Salary surveys:   This Society for Human Resource Management site offers links to two dozen sources of salary information. It also offers extensive lists of links to sources of information on compensation and benefits.

  • Salary Wizard:   According to this website, from Salary.Com, there are thousands of salaries for job titles nationwide, in 67 job categories. Salary information may be limited to zip code or state-metro area. For instance, see the median salary for an accounting director in Seattle.

    Northwest:

  • CEO Pay:   Each year, in June, the Seattle Times publishes its Northwest 100, a compilation of the top public companies in the Northwest. As part of that compilation, this annual report also examines the compensation of chief executive officers of these companies, with charts, with salaries, bonuses, total, and change over the previous year.

  • Washington Occupation and Wage Estimates:   This Washington State site, maintained by the Labor Market Information Center, provides wage information for the state, counties and some metropolitan areas. For an alphabetical list by occupation, go to High Wage Occupations in Washington.

  • National Compensation Survey:   This Bureau of Labor Statistics site offers more up-to-date information (as recent as July 1999) on mean hourly earnings and weekly hours for 480 individual occupations for metropolitan areas in the U.S. For Washington state data, click here; for Seattle--Tacoma--Bremerton, click here.

  • Earnings Forecaster (Washington State):   This Washington state government interactive site allows users to forecast hourly earnings based on education, work experience, and region within the state, "using 1998 data from the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) program. This program is operated in cooperation with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The survey includes approximately 700 occupations and meets the statistical reliability standards for nine areas, balance of state, and statewide."

  • Salary Wizard:   According to this website, from Salary.Com, there are thousands of salaries for job titles nationwide, in 67 job categories. Salary information may be limited to zip code or state-metro area; in Washington state, salaries may be limited to Bellingham, Bremerton, Everett, Kennewick, Olympia, Richland, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, or Yakima.

    Foster Business Library Reference Collection:

    The Foster Business Library Reference Collection consists of business handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other quick reference tools. It is located behind the Reference Desk in Foster, arranged by call number. Reference materials cannot be checked out; they may only be used in the library.

  • Datapedia of the United States, 1790-2005.
    This one-volume work covers United States population, vital statistics and health, migration, labor, national income and wealth, consumer income and expenditures, social statistics, land--water--climate, agriculture, forestry--fisheries, minerals, construction--housing, manufacturing, transportation, communications, energy, distribution--services, international trade, business enterprises, productivity--technological development, financial markets--institutions, and government. See Earnings on page 89.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HA202 .K87 2001.

  • Statistical abstract of the United States.
    This annual U.S. Census Bureau compendium includes a chapter on Labor Force, Employment, and Earnings which includes many tables on earnings for American workers, average annual pay by state, by metropolitan area, etc.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HA202 .U56 2004/2005.

  • World consumer income & expenditure patterns.
    See pages 517 to 535 for world earnings rankings in nineteen categories.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HB522 .W67 1999.

  • World consumer income patterns.
    This Euromonitor publication provides global coverage of comparable income distribution data, over time and across countries, for 71 major countries, divided into socio-economic parameters, cross country comparisons, and snapshots for over seventy countries. See section three for income and earnings data.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HC79 .I5 .W675 2003.

  • Yearbook of labour statistics.
    This annual publication from the International Labour Organization, provides labor force, wage and employment information (as well as information about consumer prices, strikes, and lockouts) for 190 countries.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD4826 .I63 2004.

  • Northwest management & professional salary survey.
    This slim Milliman & Robertson reference work is a summary report. Earlier editions are available in the Foster General Stacks.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD4965.5 .U6 .N76 2004.

  • Top executive compensation.
    This annual Conference Board publication provides compensation, bonus and salary information for the CEOs of almost 2,000 U.S. companies in 14 industries.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD4965.5 .U6 T66 2001.

  • American salaries and wages survey.
    This annual publication reports salary and wage data as reported in more than 300 government, business and news sources. It's arranged alphabetically by occupation for 2,600 occupations and covers all 50 states, 113 cities, 42 regions and the U.S. as a whole.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD4973 .A67 2003.

  • The geographic reference report: annual report of costs, wages, salaries, and human resource statistics, U.S. and Canada.
    Arranged by metropolitan area, this volume offers one-page profiles of major cities in the U.S. and Canada, with employment by industry, main employers, weather, crime rates, median house prices, health care costs, per diem allowances, cost of living, taxes and estimated median base salaries for over 80 occupations. Washington state cities are included: Bellingham, Bremerton, Everett, Olympia, Richland, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma and Yakima.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD6983 .G38 2005.

  • The global competitiveness report.
    Published by the World Economic Forum, this annual paperback ranks 59 countries for their competitiveness, from Singapore at the top to Russia at the bottom, with six essays and individual country profiles. One of the chapters covers wages in twenty-seven countries for five benchmark positions.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF1414 .G563 1999.

  • The IMD world competitiveness yearbook.
    This very heavy 2002 yearbook, published by the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland, provides ranking information in many competitiveness categories for 46 major countries. Among the many categories are international trade, employment, prices, business legislation, labor markets, management practices, impact of globalization, corruption. See Compensation, Labor Costs, and Remuneration on pages 650 to 653.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF1414 .W67 2004.

  • Occupational outlook handbook.
    This annual compilation from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics provides compensation data for 250 occupations as part of its profiles of these occupations. Look for the section on Earnings in each occupation. This publication is also available online.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5381 .A1 .O36 2000-2001.

  • The compensation handbook: a state-of-the-art guide to compensation strategy and design.
    Written by 56 compensation specialists, this large guide covers current and future compensation issues from surveys, to work-life issues, to global compensation in 46 essays of about 20 pages each. There is also an excellent index.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5549.5 .C67 .H36 2000.

    Foster Business Library Books:

    The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of over 70,000 books on all business topics. To search for materials on all three campuses of the University of Washington, go to the UW Libraries Catalog, in the upper left corner of the Foster Business Library homepage. Search by keyword, title, author, series, etc.

    To limit the results of your search just to materials in the Foster Business Library collection, use the Modify or Limit options at the top of the search results and change the library location to Foster Business Library. Availablity is indicated on the right of each online catalog record. First, note in which collection, within Foster, your materials are in, since the library has ten different Collections, each in a different location and often with differing arrangements. "Available" indicates that the book should be on the shelves under that call number and available for you to check out. "Due" and a date indicates that the book is already checked out to someone and is due back on the date indicated; you can have the "Request/Place Hold" feature to recall the book for your use.

    If the material you want is not in the collections of the University of Washington, you can use the "Search Summit" feature to repeat your search in the combined holdings of over thirty cooperating libraries in Washington and Oregon. Use the "Request This Item" feature in Summit to have books in those library sent here to Foster for you to check out.

    The Foster general stacks collection is located south of the main part of the Foster Business Library, through the two pass-throughs into the basement of Balmer. The arrangement is by call number, from A (at the east end, near the Copy Center) to Z (at the far west end).

    A keyword search in the UW Libraries Catalog for Salaries produced a list of over 2,000 records. Limiting this search to the Foster Business Library cut the number of records to over 150. A keyword search for Wages produced a list of over 3,000 records but limiting to the Foster Business Library cut that number to about 250 records.

    Examples of selected relevant subject headings, with holdings in the Foster Business Library, include:

    See also the subject Salaries, etc. under types of professional employees; and the subdivision Officials and employees--Salaries, etc. under names of countries, cities, etc. and names of individual government agencies; see the three examples above.

    Foster titles from these searches include:

    Foster Business Library Articles:

    Articles in academic journals, magazines, trade periodicals, and newspapers are one of the best sources for any kind of research. While the Foster Business Library offers a large periodicals print collection, comprising over 800 titles, articles are most easily accessed online, 24/7, in such fulltext article databases as EBSCO Business Source Premier, Factiva, LexisNexis Academic, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest Databases. These article databases are available in the library or from off-campus, and provide access to over 10,000 periodicals and millions of articles.

    Library access to most ProQuest databases will terminate at the end of spring quarter 2008, except for ProQuest NewsStand, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, Historical New York Times, and the Historical Wall Street Journal. For more about this change, see UW Libraries Providing New Databases. After this change, comprehensive article searches should be performed in EBSCO Business Source Premier, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest NewsStand. Also, after this change, links to the articles below will be broken.

    ProQuest Databases:

    This database--actually, a family of over two dozen databases--offers full text articles for over 10,000 publications, including scholarly journals, magazines, trade and industry periodicals, newspapers, and reports on a very wide range of topics. To find articles on specific topics, search by word or phrase by keying your search phrase into the search box--or search for your topic in the Topic Guide.

    Your search terms will be highlighted in red in each article.

    To search for articles on salaries, use the phrase SUB(Wages & Salaries); A search in all databases produced over 64,000 articles on this subject, including over 7,500 articles in scholarly journals, over 5,000 articles in magazines, over 20,000 articles in trade and industry periodicals, and over 30,000 articles in newspapers.

    To make your search more specific, add the name of the industry or executive whose salaries you are interested in. As an example, a search, in all databases, for SUB(Wages & Salaries) and SUB(Automobile Industry) produced a list of over 400 articles; SUB(Wages & Salaries) and PER(Donald Trump), just six articles.

    For articles on this separate but related topic, try searches for the SUB(Executive Compensation), with over 20,000 articles in this database.

    To obtain annual survey information on salaries, add the phrase SUB(Polls & surveys) to your search--and combine it with an industry or occupation name. As an example, a search in all databases for SUB(Wages & Salaries) and SUB(Polls & Surveys) and SUB(Automobile Industry) produced a list of four articles.

    Examples of articles, from the searches above, include:

    Help:

    29 August 2000; updated 21 November 2006.   Peter Stevens, Business Librarian, stevens@u.washington.edu,   206-543-4360.