In a conversation several years ago with a distributor who had recently sold his large, successful operation, the distributor commented on the challenges he encountered trying to train and maintain company employees. As an illustration, he referred to the tradition of sports teams and the amount of training and preparation, often a full five days, for a mere three-hour game. The distributor noted the length of practice in regards to a relatively short game and acknowledged a similar training system used by the United States military, noting the importance of superior training techniques in the event soldiers were called to duty.
When one looks at the beer industry, it is quickly evident the amount of time invested into craft beer training. A recent article in the Dallas Morning News, “Jobs Data Helps Track the U.S. Brewery Boom,” highlights the job growth of the brewing industry. The article stated, “The number of jobs at breweries jumped from 26,380 in 2008 to 77,902 in 2018, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” This parallels the growth in the number of operating breweries.
The article further states that there is also a regional variation to be found. Some regions, or cities, have more breweries than others. To sort this out, an “employment location quotient” provided by the BLS for states, metropolitan areas, and countries was in each industry. The BLS measures an industry’s share of total jobs in an area divided by its share nationwide. In Bend-Redmond, Oregon, population 191,000 in 2018, one is 18 times more likely to run into a brewery worker than in the U.S. as a whole.
This article goes on to state that the BLS will suppress data so as not to reveal employment and wage information that can be traced to a single employer. For example, in Chico, California, home to Sierra Nevada, and in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, the home of Yuenglng, the data is suppressed. The data translates into salary ranges, thereby illustrating that an AB brewery or a MillerCoors operation would have the highest pay. The metropolitan areas with annual brewery wages of $80,000 are indeed home to major AB breweries. In the craft world, San Diego, which has 128 breweries, has low wages, as would be expected. Employment, however, has more than doubled since 2014. The annual wages on the low end of the scale are $23,049 in Niles-Benton Harbor, Michigan and the highest in Syracuse, New York, at $89,675. The brewing industry only accounts for 0.05% of total jobs in the U.S.
Many craft brewers struggle to find quality employees as referenced by the low salaries. These brewers can find bodies, but without the proper, on-going training, how well are they going to perform? Many of the young beer people have some type of Cicerone training, which does aid with the understanding of beer, but may not necessarily translate into sales.
The old adage, “you get what you pay for,” could not be more evident than in today’s beer industry. It is easy to equate a breweries’ payroll to their success by using the above mentioned statistics. If a brewery wants to be successful, they should pay for talent instead of simply acquiring more employees. Not only will the brewery benefit, but so will the wholesalers, retailers, and consumers
Money and salary are not particularly good motivators in the long term.
Leave a Reply