The Average Salary of Meat Cutters in Georgia
Meat cutters, also called butchers, process large parts into smaller cuts for sale at retail stores and for places that serve meals. Most work for grocery stores and for wholesalers that sell meat to restaurants and to institutional facilities with cafeterias or other food services. The average salary of meat cutters in Georgia is a bit less than the national average for this occupation, although salaries vary a great deal by city.
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Job Features
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Meat cutters cut meat into chops, steaks, roasts, ribs and cutlets. They slice and grind meat for sandwich meat and hamburger. They cut poultry into separate pieces and fillet fish. In grocery stores, some meat cutters package the product, weigh it and label it for refrigerated case display. They also fill orders from individual customers by cutting smaller portions. Meat cutters in stores increasingly prepare ready-to-cook meals for deli cases by cutting meat into small pieces and adding vegetables and sauces. Most meat cutters work with meat after it leaves processing plants, but grocers and other retailers increasingly obtain prepackaged meat from these plants so they can avoid employing their own meat cutters.
Salary Range
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The average nationwide salary for meat cutters as of May 2009 was about $14.60 per hour, or $30,300 per year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CBSalary, a salary calculator affiliated with CareerBuilder.com, finds the average very similar in January 2011 at $30,400 per year. The middle 50 percent of those on the earnings scale were making $24,000 to $40,700. The average salary of meat cutters in Georgia was about $27,200 per year in January 2011, and those in the middle 50 percent range had incomes of $21,300 to $36,400.
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Comparisons
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Salaries in various Georgia cities have a wide range when it comes to meat cutters. Those in Macon, for instance, were making $22,800 in January 2011 on average, while meat cutters in Savannah had average annual salaries of $31,600. The average annual salary for meat cutters in Augusta was $23,100 and in Atlanta $29,200. The bottom 25 percent of these workers in Macon were earning below $18,000, in a range that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows as the bottom 10 percent of meat cutters nationwide.
Outlook
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The meat-cutting profession should experience employment growth through at least 2018, advises the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. More jobs will occur at processing plants or centralized facilities rather than at retail stores.
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References
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- Photo Credit cutting of three grades of meat image by Sergey Galushko from Fotolia.com
