Furniture Industry Wages Management Occupations
September 20,
2019 by Laurie Northington in General 
Wages across the U.S. job market have been slow to grow post-recession, despite a healthy economy and the lowest unemployment rates in decades and the furniture industry is no exception. The steady increase of furniture and home furnishings sales over the last 10 years has been slower to hit employees working in the stores, but in recent years many occupations have finally started to see an upturn in wage growth. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ March 2019 release of “Occupational Employment Statistics,” this is the first factoid in a series of five factoids detailing employee wages in furniture stores and home furnishings stores across the variety of occupations.
As expected, in major distribution channels that market furniture and home furnishings, retail management occupations carry the higher salary positions. With the exception of administrative service managers, wages in furniture stores are generally higher. In 2018, administrative service managers in home furnishings stores were the highest paid management positions, earning a median annual wage of $112,570 compared to the same occupation earning $77,240 in furniture stores. This represents a 42.4 percent increase from 2012 to 2018 for home furnishings stores administrative service managers compared to a 21.4 percent increase in furniture stores. In furniture stores, financial managers are the highest paid management positions averaging $114,600 annually. Purchasing managers are the second highest management position in furniture stores at $107,180, similar to wages of $107,400 in home furnishings stores. Purchasing managers earnings increased 2012 to 2018 by 45.3 percent and 20.6 percent, respectively.
On average, neither general managers, sales managers nor transportation, storage, and distribution managers have broken the $100,000 ceiling. In addition, the earning of GMs in furniture stores and home furnishings stores have had the lowest increase of all management positions over the last five years, growing only 1.6 percent and 0.9 percent respectively 2012 to 2018. GMs in furniture stores earned over $5,000 more annually than those in home furnishings stores – sales managers more than $13,000 and $15,000 for transportation and distribution managers.
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Occupational Employment Statistics,” released March 29, 2019.