Income Survey

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Member Income Survey

Do you earn enough?

Every year in February, the GDCh calls on its full members to take part in an income survey. Members who work in Germany and do not work in the public service can take part. The current survey in February/March 2024 asks for income in 2023. As in previous years, the evaluation is carried out at the Chair of Human Resources at RWTH Aachen University University.

Please note: Only members who complete the survey will receive the brochure with the results!

Participation information

All full members who work outside the public service are invited to participate. The questionnaire will be sent by post to the address available at the GDCh at the end of January.

Members,

     

  • those in industry,
  • free economy,
  • Publishing,
  • Associations or similar work,
  • who were employed in Germany in the previous year
  •  

but have not received the questionnaire, you can contact the career service (karriere@gdch.de) stating your membership number. You will then receive your personal questionnaire.

The income survey is carried out in a joint campaign by GDCh and VAA. The large number of participants in a joint survey ensures that the data can be evaluated in a statistically meaningful way. And in contrast to many other salary reports, the GDCh / VAA survey also takes into account the number of years of service, among other factors.

As always, each member contains his or her personal questionnaire with the individual participant number. This questionnaire may therefore only be completed by the member to whom it was sent. The evaluation will again be carried out by Professor Christian Grund from RWTH Aachen and his team. With the questionnaire, the members receive an envelope printed with the address. In order to protect the anonymity of the survey, separate the questionnaire from the sheet with your address. There should also be no sender on the envelope. The letters must have sufficient postage, otherwise the university post office will not accept them. The closing date for entries is March 31.

Extended evaluation for GDCh participants

The results should again be particularly interesting for many GDCh members who do not work in the large chemical industry but in smaller companies from a wide variety of areas outside the chemical industry. It has long been suspected that salaries there are lower than in the large chemical industry. However, concrete figures are only available since the GDCh took part in the survey previously carried out solely by the VAA, because the VAA members are mostly active in large companies in the chemical industry.

Due to the different membership structures of the GDCh and VAA, the results are also processed differently. The GDCh brochure shows not only income within the chemical industry, but also income outside of the chemical industry. These are not included in the VAA brochure because the VAA includes all members of the chemical industry. Conversely, the VAA publishes information about the salaries of its members in the commercial sector that is not in the GDCh brochure.

Anonymity guaranteed despite participant number

As in previous years, only those members who participated in the survey will receive the results. For this purpose, the GDCh will receive a list of the participant numbers of the participating members from Christian Grund.

The participant number is unique to each member and is at the top of the questionnaire. To protect the anonymity of the survey, separate the questionnaire from the sheet with your address. There should also be no sender on the envelope. Christian Grund and his team work with the participant numbers and the associated data, but cannot infer the membership number from the numbers and certainly not the people who belong to it, since they do not receive any personal data apart from the participant number.

The GDCh Career Services team knows the membership and participant number of their participating members, but not the associated salary data. You don't even see the completed questionnaires, because they are sent directly to the chair in Aachen by the participants.

Questions about salary and job satisfaction

The most important questions in the questionnaire are, of course, about salary. In addition, however, questions are also asked about a job change or a work-related stay abroad, as well as the number of subordinate employees and a company car. Other questions deal with the social situation of the participant, such as whether they live in a partnership or have dependent children. They are also asked about their general satisfaction with their job. The evaluation of all this information is intended to provide comprehensive information not only about income, but also generally about career paths and the social situation of the participants.

With the individual participant number, so-called longitudinal observations can also be carried out, in which the individual salary development of the participants is tracked over several years. This makes it possible to determine, for example, the influence of a stay abroad or a job change on the salary. Even participants who do not take part every year but at longer intervals can thus be included in the longitudinal analysis.

20 Frequently Asked Income Survey Questions

1. Who can take part in the income survey?

All GDCh members who are employed in industry or trade, i.e. are not subject to the tariff structures of the public service and work in Germany.

2. Why are members who work abroad not allowed to participate?

Because the cost of living, income and tax treatment differ in each country, income earned abroad is not comparable to income earned in Germany. We would therefore have to make a separate evaluation for each country. In order to enable a detailed evaluation according to years of service, however, a large number of data sets are required. Since our members living abroad are spread across many countries, there are too few members per country to create serious evaluations (see also question 19).
In 2015 there was a survey among the members in Switzerland for the first time, which was carried out together with the VAA and the Swiss Chemical Society. Due to the lower number of participants, however, this is not carried out annually, but at longer intervals.

3. Can chemists who are not GDCh members also take part in the income survey?

No. Our income survey is a service to our members and only they are allowed to participate in the survey.

4. How do I get the questionnaire?

Members whose work address tells us that they are employed in the industry will receive the questionnaire in the mail at the end of January.

5. Why didn't I receive the questionnaire even though I work in industry?

We only have the home address of many of our members and can therefore not see where they work. If you inform our member service of your work address or change it yourself under MyGDCh, you will be automatically taken into account in the following year. (Of course, you can still have the "messages" sent to your private address, even if you have given a business address.) Members who work in industry and have not received the questionnaire can, of course, request it from the GDCh Career Service .

6. What is the participant number printed on the questionnaire?

The identification or participant number is generated from the membership number. All participants have their personal participant number, which will not change in the years to come.

7. What is the purpose of the subscriber number?

With the help of the participant number, so-called longitudinal observations can be carried out, in which the individual salary development of the participants is tracked over several years. This makes it possible to determine, for example, the influence of a stay abroad or a job change on the salary.

8. Is the survey still anonymous if all participants have an individual number?

Yes, anonymity is maintained in any case. The identification number is assigned from the membership number using an encryption technique. Professor Christian Grund and his team work with the participant numbers and the associated data at the chair for human resources at the RWTH Aachen University University, where the evaluation is carried out. However, you cannot draw conclusions about the membership number from the numbers and certainly not about the persons belonging to them, since they do not receive any personal data apart from the participant number. The GDCh, in turn, knows the membership and participant numbers of its participating members, but not the associated salary data. We don't get to see the completed questionnaires because they are sent directly to the chair in Aachen by the participants. An envelope with the address is enclosed with the questionnaire. In order to maintain anonymity, you should not put a sender on the envelope.

9. What happens if I remove or redact the participant number on the questionnaire?

After completion of the evaluation, the GDCh will receive a list with the participant numbers from the Aachen chair. From this, the membership numbers and thus the participants can be inferred. If your participant number is missing from the questionnaire, we have no proof that you took the survey and we will not send you the results of the survey (see also question 14).

10. By when do the questionnaires have to be at the university?

Questionnaires are normally accepted by March 31st. The deadlines are also on the questionnaires themselves and here on the Internet.

11. What happens if I forget to stamp the letter sufficiently?

Insufficiently stamped letters will not be accepted by the post office. Senders then do not take part in the survey.

12. Are the results the same as the VAA income survey results?

It is a joint survey by GDCh and VAA. Therefore the results are also the same. However, there are differences in the publication of the data. The results of the participants who work outside the chemical industry are only published in the GDCh brochure.

13. I am a member of both organizations. Who should I join?

As a rule, double members receive the questionnaire via the VAA. If you receive a questionnaire from the GDCh, you participate via the GDCh. If you are interested in income outside of the chemical industry, take part via the GDCh because these results are only shown in the GDCh brochure (see question 12). Please do not participate twice, otherwise you will falsify the results.

14. Who receives the income survey results?

In the interest of those who took the trouble to complete the questionnaire, only those members who responded to the survey will receive the results booklet. For this purpose, the GDCh will receive a list of the participant numbers from the RWTH Aachen University (see also question 9). Experience shows that when the results are made available to all, participation continues to fall.

15. But that is unfair. Since I work abroad, I am not allowed to participate and have no chance of receiving the results.

Unfortunately, there are members who cannot participate and therefore do not receive the results. We understand that some may find this unfair. However, since we cannot send the evaluation to all members (see question 14), a completely fair solution would only be to drop the income survey altogether.

16. Is there any other salary information for members who are unable to participate?

For members who cannot participate, we have created a greatly abbreviated version, which members can obtain from the GDCh Career Service upon request. For those starting their careers, there is information in the GDCh members' area under "MyGDCh" at www.gdch.de under "Special offers for members" and "Salaries for female chemists".

17. When will the brochure with the results of the income survey be ready?

The brochure is expected to be ready in July/August and will then be sent to all participants.

18. Why is the brochure of the GDCh finished later than that of the VAA?

Because we are a small department and we create them ourselves. In addition, we will be busy with the annual statistics for the degree programs until mid-June and can only take care of the income survey afterwards. However, we try to finish a little earlier each year. Promised!

19. Why is there no separate evaluation for food chemists (polymer chemists, analysts, construction chemists...)? That's a big group within the GDCh!

A big plus of the survey is the breakdown of earnings by years of service. After all, stating an average salary is not of much use if the incomes of young professionals and those who have been employed for many years are lumped together. For this we need a minimum number of participants of several hundred people. If we were to divide our participating members into different groups, there would be far too few data sets to be able to do serious statistics. We therefore limit our analysis to separating participants from inside and outside the chemical industry (see also question 12).

20. Why are the evaluations for the participants from the new federal states so short?

Unfortunately, the number of participants from the new federal states is too small to carry out a more detailed evaluation (see also question 19).

Aktuelle GDCh-Einkommensumfrage

Rücksendeschluss: 31.03.2024

www.gdch.de/eku

 

 

Contact

GDCh career service
Varrentrappstr. 40-42
60486 Frankfurt a. M.
Tel .: +49 69 7917-665 or -668
Email: karriere@gdch.de
Contact Person

starting salaries

Information on starting salaries for chemists in the chemical industry can be found here

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last modified: 29.01.2024 16:29 H from Translator