Knowledge workers command premium way.

What do an accountant and a construction foreman in Los Angeles County have in common, besides fighting traffic?

Do an Internet webmaster and a factory supervisor share a common bond in the workplace?

The answer in both cases is yes: They earn roughly the same salaries, on average. Accountants and construction foremen each make about $45,000 a year, while webmasters and factory supervisors make $64,000 annually.

Those are among the findings of a new salary survey prepared for the Business Journal by the Economic Research Institute in Redmond, Wash. The survey provides a guide to the landscape of L.A. salaries, from the $13,682 a year earned by a fast-food clerk to the $483,774 drawn by the average neurosurgeon.

Among other things, the salary survey reflects the premium being paid to so-called knowledge workers - those with specialized skills and talents that command the highest wages.

High and Low

The upper and lower-echelons of salaried workers in L.A. County.

Highest

Neurosurgeon                         $483,774
Cardiologist                          258,292
Hospital Administrator                210,094
Orthodontist                          207,968
Psychiatrist                          189,313
Pediatrician                          169,406
Chief Financial Officer               160,826
Dentist                               116,748
Managed Care Administrator            105,066
Computer software Design Manager       89,649

Lowest

Bartender                             $19,115
Home Health Aide                       19,017
Bank Teller                            18,909
Masseur/Masseuse                       18,638
Farm Worker                            16,790
Waiter/Waitress                        16,464
Housecleaner                           16,116
Parking Lot Attendant                  15,942
Amusement Park Attendant               15,736
Fast Food Worker                       13,682

The ranks of workers who average $100,000 or higher annual paychecks include cardiologists, chief financial officers, dentists and hospital administrators.

Also earning relatively high salaries are computer software design managers ($89,649), corporate jet pilots ($72,643) and tax attorneys ($80,143).

At the other extreme, the ranks of those who make below $20,000 a year includes jobs whose value is under attack from new technology, such as bank tellers and retail sales clerks.

Also averaging less than $20,000 were amusement-park workers, parking attendants, bartenders, farm workers and home health aides.

Most workers here fall somewhere in the middle. Some make more than might be imagined - a service station manager earns, on average, $74,322 a year. Some may make less than commonly thought - like $46,986 for an average securities broker and $26,944 for a camera operator.

While that last figure may seem low, it reflects an average salary for all camera operators - from those behind the lenses for major motion pictures, to the people who take videos at weddings.

Determining how much money people make can be a tricky job - especially in L.A. There are actors who are really waiters, illegal aliens who are working but not formally counted, and everyone's got a screenplay they'd like to sell.

ERI prepared the Business Journal survey by compiling data from dozens of regional and national studies conducted by government agencies and other organizations. The data were then assembled and evaluated by industry, location, size of firm and other factors.

Salaries can be difficult to accurately track for many reasons. As the economy changes, new occupations are created. Sometimes, it takes a few years for standard pay scales to evolve.

For example, the job of webmaster - the person who oversees an organization's Web site on the Internet - has just appeared over the past five years, and the market is still determining the going rate. As a result, salaries tend to vary, depending on whether the webmaster works for a company with a major online presence or for a small firm just venturing into cyberspace.

Wages are also changing - more rapidly in some occupations than in others.

For the past seven years, employers have been giving merit increases of 4 percent or lower on average, according to a survey by William M. Mercer Inc. But the survey also found that top performers are receiving double-digit increases, while low performers are getting goose eggs.

"It's more beneficial to hire top performers, even if you pay a premium," said Catherine Shepard, a Mercer principal who leads the L.A. office's performance and rewards practice. She cited one study showing that top performers contribute 12 times the productivity of average performers.

"Top performers can go to a new organization and call their price. That's what I think has put pressure on companies to do double-digit raises. They don't want to risk losing them," she said.

In addition to top performers, certain occupations are in great demand - particularly in the areas of cost control (such as company financial officers), human resources and information systems.

"People have become the most volatile resources in an organization, the most difficult to control. It puts pressure on the positions that have to do with human resources,' Shepard said.

Financial officer salaries have gone up as companies become more focused on keeping costs down. Mercer's study found controllers' base pay has increased by 56 percent since 1988.

The Business Journal survey showed that pay for a chief financial officer in L.A. County averages $160,826.

That reflects the fact that most companies have "done as much downsizing as they can" and must find new ways to cut costs to be competitive, Mercer said.

Salaries for technology-heavy jobs have increased by 52 percent in the past decade. Among the computer jobs on the Journal's list, computer software design manager has the highest average salary, at $89,649.

Systems analysts and electronic data processors are projected to have one of the highest growth rates in terms of numbers of workers, going from 14,350 in 1994 to an estimated 22,770 in 2001, according to the state Employment Development Department.

On the other hand, jobs that have been squeezed by technology have seen little growth in salaries. These include the file clerk, entry-level bank teller, and security guard, whose salaries have risen 23 percent, 27 percent and 33 percent, respectively, since 1988.

Los Angeles salaries for all levels are 11.7 percent higher than the national average, said Marvin Dertien, research manager at Economic Research Institute.

The higher salary levels are most pronounced at the lower levels, he said. For example, at the $24,000-per-year level, L.A. tends to run about 15 percent above the national norm.

The differential is not as great as the pity level rises. At the $70,000 level, Dertien said, L.A. companies pay 8 percent more than the national average. That's because the higher-paying jobs tend to draw from a wider labor pool, whereas the market for lower-paying jobs is more local.

Mercer's study showed that more companies are using variable compensation, such as incentives and bonuses, to reward top performance. The incentives are paid only if performance meets or exceeds expectations, and improved technology allows companies to track performance more accurately.

"What we're seeing is a trend toward variable pay, for all levels of positions and holding employees more accountable for specific results," said Danielle Mitchell, senior consultant in the human resources strategies group at Deloitte & Touche in Los Angeles.

Age and seniority are good clues to determining how much an employee makes, but even that may not help, as different industries handle compensation in different ways.

A secretary may earn a yearly raise, advancing slowly up the pay scale, but never making a jump into a high-wage management position. On the other hand, a twentysomething assistant earning grunt wages for a Hollywood studio may become a hot producer with a new Mercedes in a matter of years.