I've worked in places where QC Inspectors are hourly and where they're salaried. I've always been in manufacturing.

what do you see as more prevalent in your world?

Are there laws in your country/province/state/locality that dictate if a type of work must be paid salary (then either exempt or non-exempt) or hourly?

I'm pretty much talking traditional QC inspectors - the spend most of their time measuring and checking.

I've worked in places where QC Inspectors are hourly and where they're salaried. I've always been in manufacturing.

what do you see as more prevalent in your world?

Are there laws in your country/province/state/locality that dictate if a type of work must be paid salary (then either exempt or non-exempt) or hourly?

I'm pretty much talking traditional QC inspectors - the spend most of their time measuring and checking.In the USA, almost always, unless the employee manages other folks with input on hiring or firing them, the employee is non-exempt and will be eligible for overtime pay (hourly) beyond 40n hours per week. The rule are arcane and it is always best to get a legal opinion from an attorney familiar with employment law to see if the employee can be considered "professional" and thus exempt. In my experience, such professionals then have to be free to set their own hours and not be forced to work specific hours. In Chicago, medical doctors on staff at the County Hospital are not exempt because they must work certain hours and have no freedom to set their own hours.

I've worked in places where QC Inspectors are hourly and where they're salaried. I've always been in manufacturing.

what do you see as more prevalent in your world?

Are there laws in your country/province/state/locality that dictate if a type of work must be paid salary (then either exempt or non-exempt) or hourly?

I'm pretty much talking traditional QC inspectors - the spend most of their time measuring and checking.

By and large,Q/C Inspectors in India are a salaried class.At least to the best of my knowledge. :tg:

I have not heard of hourly wages in Asia, esp in countries like India, China and Singapore. Most guys are salaried but the terms of employment may vary between contract (say 1 year) to a permanent type of job.

ScottK is asking an interesting question. As Wes pointed out exempt and non-exempt is terminology used in the USA. I am not sure if these can be translated into other countries.

My experience in manufacturing has been that QC inspectors are paid by the hour. If they work more than 40 hours per week, they get paid for those hours they work beyond 40 hours.

Engineers in general get paid a fixed salary to get a job done and work whatever hours it takes to get it done (with limitations). I have seen companies that pay engineers by the hours. If they work more than 40 hours (with permission from their manager), they will get paid those extra hours. I have also seen that engineers get overtime after they have work more than 45 hours per week (assuming the 1 hour per day is build in the salary).

I've worked in places where QC Inspectors are hourly and where they're salaried. I've always been in manufacturing.

what do you see as more prevalent in your world?

Are there laws in your country/province/state/locality that dictate if a type of work must be paid salary (then either exempt or non-exempt) or hourly?

I'm pretty much talking traditional QC inspectors - the spend most of their time measuring and checking.

I sense some difference in interpretation of the word 'HOURLY',in the posters' mind.Do you mean that the inspector is paid for just 1/2/3... hrs in a day if there is'nt more work in the company?

ScottK is asking an interesting question. As Wes pointed out exempt and non-exempt is terminology used in the USA. I am not sure if these can be translated into other countries.

My experience in manufacturing has been that QC inspectors are paid by the hour. If they work more than 40 hours per week, they get paid for those hours they work beyond 40 hours.

Engineers in general get paid a fixed salary to get a job done and work whatever hours it takes to get it done (with limitations). I have seen companies that pay engineers by the hours. If they work more than 40 hours (with permission from their manager), they will get paid those extra hours. I have also seen that engineers get overtime after they have work more than 45 hours per week (assuming the 1 hour per day is build in the salary).

I gather from your and Bucey's post that you are counting on a minimum of 40 hrs work/week followed by overtime.This is a different situation from the one I have questioned ibid,and the responses given by Ajit Basrur & Qualitytoughnut are w.r.t. my question.

In India the Q/C Inspector comes in the category of 'Highly Skilled Artisan',and different state governments have their own slabs of minimum wages for 48 hrs. work/week,beyond which they are entitled for over time.

Many companies appoint diploma holders as Q/C Inspectors (I do),to maintain high quality standards.They too are entitled for overtime,beyond 48 hrs.work per week.Here there is no hard and fast rule,it varies from company to company.

/Umang :D

Umang, I'll try to clarify the hourly versus salaried somewhat. Here in the US, an hourly worker is usually a lower status position than salary. Hourly in manufacturing is often associated with unionized workers. So an hourly inspector would in many ways (other than tasks performed) be equivalent to a production worker who ran a machine to produce product. In fact, the inspector might even be paid less than the skilled operator of a complicated piece of equipment.

Scott, I've worked mostly in the metals industry and my experience with QC inspectors (or their equivalent) has varied. I would include lab technicians under the QC umbrella, as they're critical to determining final product acceptance/quality. In most steel mills I've worked at, the inspectors and lab technicians were part of the unionized work force, and thus were hourly workers who were paid over time for hours > 40 per week. On the other hand, at AK Steel's butler works the lab techs for the silicon lab, the electrical steel lab, & the mechanical testing lab were union. The techs for the Chem Lab were mostly salaried non-exempt employees, who did get over time, but were not unionized.

The only inspectors we had at North American Hoganas were salaried lab techs (again, non-exempt who were paid OT) who were responsible for determining whether final product met customer specifications. In-process checks were done by operators.

At my current employer, a foundry, lab techs are hourly employees. And I have hourly "auditors" who check on the status of processes to determine whether work instructions are being followed. I feel as though I've regressed to the 1970's and the first steel milll I worked at who had observers following steel trhough processing to determine if WI's had been folowed and to stop production when they weren't being followed.

Kevin clarified the houlry/salary question pretty well.

You know - adding the union angle in - I worked in one union shop. There the QC inspectors were salary non-exempt (for those unfamiliar, non-exempt means you are not exempt from being paid for hours worked over 40 in a week. It's also called salary + overtime of you get OT rate over 40.)

I think the reason they did that was to keep the QC department out of the union.

I think some of our visitors from outside the US may still be confused by the explanations. To simplify:

Hourly: Means you get paid for each hour that you work, and work is scheduled to specific times. Pay is stated as $xx per hour. Most US laws/rules are anything over 8 hours per day (or 40 hours in a week) is overtime, which is usually 1.5 times your base pay per hour. Most hourly employees are required to sign in and out in some way to record exact time worked.

In most manufacturing, employees are what is considered "full-time", which is 40 hours a week base pay. Yes, there are times when if there is no work, hourly employees will be sent home early, or not scheduled at all ("laid-off").

note: Union bargaining agreements often add more variations to this.

Salary: Pay is the same no matter the hours worked. Usually pay is stated as $xx per year. (which is then divided up by # of checks, for payment purposes). Laws/rules regulate excessive time requirements, etc. Generally there is some flexibility on start and end times, etc.

Note: This is a very simplified description, there are variations all over the place.

Hope this helps!

Thanks Mustang, that was much simpler, and pretty much explains it all. My only addition would be that Salaried Employees are usually supervisory, management, or technical/engineers. The whole union/non-union thing just gets confusing to anyone who doesn't understand how unions work (and some that do)