Starting Wages for New Hires

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I sit on an advisory committee for the Welding program for a local Community College that has 3 campuses in Nebraska, one of the topics for our last meeting was starting wages for new hires. My largest customer (over 100 arcs) starts out at just over $15.00 an hour, which is pretty good for the area. Another one of my customers (production Mig welding) is trying to hire students from this College, but only want's to start them at $10.00-$11.00 an hour, I guess I can't see a young person going this route when they could make the same flipping burgers. I met with the HR manager yesterday at my largest account, he's considering raising the starting wage, but also is asking me what other benefits my other customers offer there employees, I think he's on the right track, as it isn't always pay that keeps good people. My question to everbody is this, what benefit do you receive (besides pay and health insurance) that you consider a good perk, and a reason to stay where you are, or a reason to want to go to work for that company?
Reply:60+ hours a week, 401k that they match upto 6%4 weeks off Paid
Reply:$15-18.00/hr sounds about right to start right out of school.$10-11.00/hr is an insult for someone out of school, it would be about right for a totally unskilled person.The greatest perk that I used to enjoy about working for someone else was the ability to do "G" jobs once in a while.  I got to make some pretty cool stuff for myself before I had my own equipment.Buy American, or don't whine when you end up on the bread line.
Reply:Let your customers know if they pay much less than what the people think is right  expect the employees will make it up in other ways like theft, low production and high turnover and so on.
Reply:I'll have to agree with AMC and boatwelder.Melt-n-Metal
Reply:Tell them if they want ****ty welders who have low QC and are disgruntled to go ahead and pay them $10-11 an hour. It'd be one thing if I signed on to such a company and learned to mig weld from them in a short period of time, but no, I just went through several classes and dedicated lots of time and money to this venture. Insurance and retirement/401k is OK but don't offer ****ty versions of each and act like you're giving me something impressive. I value a company treating me right a LOT more than crappy healthcare/retirement. Give the employee respect (that doesn't mean letting them walk all over you, of course) and a good employee will move the damn world for you.