December 02, 2005 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Meeting and convention planners

Median annual earnings of the nation’s meeting and convention planners—who coordinate meeting details, such as booking speakers and locations and arranging for printed materials and audiovisual equipment—were $39,620 in May 2004.

[Chart data—TXT]

Half of meeting and convention planners earned more than this amount, and half earned less. The highest earning 10 percent made more than $65,060, and the lowest earning 10 percent made less than $24,660.

The largest employers of meeting and convention planners are hotels and other traveler accommodation establishments, and business, professional, and similar organizations. Few planners are self-employed.

These data are from the Occupational Employment Statistics program. For more information, see "Meeting and convention planners" by Sadie Blanchard, Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Fall 2005. These data are for meeting and convention planners employed in wage-and-salary jobs. Note about chart: Percentile wage estimates show the percentage of workers in an occupation that earn less than a given wage and the percentage that earn more. The median wage is the 50th percentile wage estimate—50 percent of workers earn less than the median and 50 percent of workers earn more than the median.