Machine trades are manufacturing industries that use specialized machines to create parts and entire products out of materials like metal and plastic. Many of these machines are run by trained operators on assembly lines and in factories and plants. But the industry uses other workers who are vital to smooth results, including the technicians who assist higher-skilled workers such as engineers in creating and executing plans, or even operating and evaluating the production equipment.
About Engineering Techs
The most common type of technician in the machine trades is the engineering tech. These workers assist engineers in performing their duties, and usually specialize in a particular type of engineering. Their numbers often depend on how their particular skills mesh with the type of manufacturing in which they work. The most common techs working in various machine trades were industrial engineering techs, mechanical engineering techs and electrical engineering techs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The ratio among the types depended on which kind of manufacturing they work with.
Engineering Tech Pay
In the metal manufacturing industry, the largest number of techs worked in industrial engineering and electrical engineering, according to the bureau. These techs were paid mean annual wages of $53,600 and $56,280, respectively, as of May 2011. In the fabricated product industry, industrial engineering techs were still the most frequently employed, but mechanical engineering techs were the second-most common. They earned an average of $48,520 and $52,310 per year, respectively. Finally, the machinery manufacturing industry employed all three types in large numbers, paying a mean annual wage of $51,630 to industrial techs, $49,790 to mechanical techs and $51,240 to electrical techs.
Chemical techs could also be found in the machine trades, according to the bureau, assisting chemists and other scientists. They earned a mean annual wage of $42,650 in metal manufacturing, $47,580 in fabricated product manufacturing and $46,380 in machinery manufacturing. Metal and fabrication manufacturing also used environmental science technicians, paying them a mean annual wage of $42,970 and $48,050, respectively.
Occupational safety is an important element in machine trades, and all three major metal and machine manufacturing industries employed safety technicians. They earned a mean annual wage of $52,620 in metal manufacturing, $50,380 in fabricated product manufacturing and $42,040 in machinery manufacturing.
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