Westerners Earn More

Executives in the West are better paid than their counterparts in the rest of the country, according to a survey by Heidrick & Struggles, an executive-search firm based in Chicago.

The survey of 545 executives at or above the vice president level who changed jobs in the second half of 1984 indicated that the average annual salary totaled $218,000, up from $202,908 in 1984. Nationally, executive compensation averaged out to $213,000 a year.

About 40% of the Westerners said they received $230,000 or more, while 84% said they also received such perks as stock options or cars as part of their new jobs.

The survey also outlines a demographic profile of the typical Western manager: a 47-year-old white male, married to his first spouse, who has worked for three employers and made a job-related relocation an average of four times. His field of expertise is general management; he works, on average, 59 hours a week and plans to retire before age 65.

Heidrick & Struggles also noted that the Westerners “display a stronger strain of individualism” than others in its survey, with only 7% defining corporate loyalty as “giving 100% of my effort and dedication to the company.”

Moreover, when asked to describe “the ideal employer,” only about one-fourth of the respondents named their current company. That level of dissatisfaction was no doubt good news for the executive-search firm.