Would you like to take part in the upcoming income survey and receive the complete analysis by years in the profession?
Then check your current personal details via MyGDCh. Ordinary GDCh members whose personal details include employer information and who are NOT subject to the pay structures of the public sector will be contacted automatically at the beginning of the year.
Otherwise, please feel free to write to us after the call for participation in the February issue of “Nachrichten” (our member magazine). We will then send you the questionnaire manually.
The survey is open from 1 February to 15 April each year.
All full members who work outside the public sector are invited to participate. The questionnaire will be sent by post at the end of January to the mailing address held by the GDCh.
Members
but have not received the questionnaire can contact the Career Service (karriere@gdch.de), stating their membership number. They will then be sent their personal questionnaire.
The income survey is conducted jointly by the GDCh and VAA. The large number of participants in a joint survey ensures that the data can be evaluated in a statistically meaningful way. Unlike many other salary reports, the GDCh/VAA survey also takes the number of years of professional experience into account, alongside other factors.
As always, each member will receive their personal questionnaire with an individual participant number. This questionnaire may therefore only be completed by the member to whom it was sent. The evaluation will once again be carried out by Professor Christian Grund of RWTH Aachen University and his team. Members will receive an envelope bearing their address together with the questionnaire. To preserve the anonymity of the survey, detach the questionnaire from the sheet bearing your address. The envelope should not bear a sender’s address either. The letters must bear sufficient postage, otherwise the university’s mailroom will not accept them. The deadline for participation is 15 April.
The results are likely to be of particular interest again to many GDCh members who work not in the large-scale chemical industry, but in smaller companies in a wide range of sectors, including outside the chemical industry. It had long been suspected that salaries there were lower than in the large-scale chemical industry. However, concrete figures have only been available since the GDCh joined the survey, which was previously conducted solely by the VAA, as VAA members are generally employed by large companies in the chemical industry.
Because GDCh and VAA have different membership structures, the results are also prepared differently. The GDCh brochure presents not only incomes within the chemical industry, but also incomes outside the chemical industry . These are not included in the VAA brochure because the VAA classifies all its members as belonging to the chemical industry. Conversely, the VAA publishes information on the salaries of its members in commercial roles, which is not included in the GDCh brochure.
As in previous years, only those members who have taken part in the survey will receive the results. To this end, GDCh will receive a list of the participant numbers of participating members from Christian Grund.
The participant number is unique to each member and is shown at the top of the questionnaire. To preserve the anonymity of the survey, detach the questionnaire from the sheet bearing your address. The envelope should not bear a return address either. Christian Grund and his team work with the participant numbers and the associated data, but cannot use the numbers to infer the membership number, let alone the identities of the individuals concerned, as they receive no personal data other than the participant number.
The GDCh Career Service team knows the membership and participant numbers of its participating members, but not the associated salary data. They do not see the completed questionnaires at all, as participants send these directly to the chair in Aachen.
The most important questions in the questionnaire are, of course, those about salary. In addition, participants are asked about a change of position or a work-related stay abroad, as well as the number of employees reporting to them and whether they have a company car. Other questions concern the participant’s social situation, such as whether they are in a relationship or have children they are legally obliged to support. General satisfaction with their professional activity is also surveyed. Evaluating all this information is intended to provide comprehensive insights not only into incomes, but also generally into the career paths and social situation of the participants.
The individual participant number can also be used to carry out what are known as longitudinal analyses, in which participants’ individual salary development is tracked over several years. This makes it possible, for example, to determine the impact of a stay abroad or a change of position on salary. Participants who do not take part every year, but at longer intervals, can also be included in the longitudinal analysis.