NADA study: Dealership wages keep rising

NADA study: Dealership wages keep rising

The average annual compensation for employees at new-car dealerships in all positions was $69,718 in 2015, a 1 percent increase from 2014, according to NADAês recently released Dealership Workforce Study. Dealership productivity, measured as gross profit per employee, increased 0.4 percent to $8,446.

A new measurement for 2016, which included a pay analysis of individual dealership employees working in the same position in 2014 and 2015, showed an average earnings growth rate of 6.3 percent year over year compared with the private sector rate of 2.2 percent in 2015.

General managers and F&I managers saw double digit percentage earnings growth rates, as sales managers and sales consultants increased 4.5 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively. Earnings growth in key fixed ops positions rose an average of 7.5 percent.

Total employee turnover remained relatively unchanged at 39.6 percent, up slightly from 39.3 percent in 2014 but still lower than the U.S. non-farm, private sector average of 46 percent. Annualized turnover for sales consultants at all new-car dealerships dropped 5 points to 67 percent in 2015.

Dealerships are doing a better at hiring and retaining millennnials, but not women, the study found. Sixty percent of all new hires in 2015 were millennials.

–As more and more dealerships add flexibility to work schedules and move away from 100 percent commission pay plans to attract and retain millennials, nonluxury dealerships reduced sales consultant turnover by eight points,” said NADA Chief Economist Steven Szakaly.

The ratio of women working at new-car dealerships was 18.6 percent, a slight increase from 2014. Women accounted for 20 percent of all new hires, the same as the previous year.

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