Good news on salaries

1/10/2010

TOLEDO received a bit of good news last week on the employment front. The median salary of its college-educated residents rose over the last four years by 11 percent, ahead of every city in Ohio except Cincinnati and 33rd among the 100 largest metropolital areas in the United States.

Indeed, Toledo beat out heavyweights such as Chicago, Boston, and New York in the survey conducted by Payscale.com for the Forbes magazine Web site.

Yes, some people will point out that Toledo's median salary of $49,900 is lower than every major Ohio city except Youngstown.

It's also true that only about 15 percent of Toledo-area workers have a college degree. And in fairness, other researchers looking just at entry-level jobs for new college graduates found salaries in the region have been flat over the past two years.

Still, the fatter pay packets for Toledo's college-educated work force are another indication that regional high-tech employment, especially in the solar and other alternative-energy industries, is having a positive impact.

Add to that the relatively low cost of living locally and Toledo begins to look like a pretty good place for other college graduates to move to. That could become increasingly significant as Toledo and northwest Ohio make their bid to become Ohio's version of California's Silicon Valley.

As bleak as the economic picture appears on most fronts, we'll take good news wherever we can get it.