Av. Pay for Extraction Tech. CA

I was wondering what the average pay for an extraction technician with a BA in bio/chem in CA is?

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$20 for a tech, non manager.

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What is pay if managing a lab with 3/5 employees?

Thats a complicated question.
First look at your buisness expenses, find out the maximum amount you can possibly afford and still have a viable buisness. Start the employee on the low side of the pay scale, and let them work their way up in pay. As @Ions71 suggested in ca the pay will be $20-$25/hour starting.

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Thata one step up from minimum wage in california. As a union trade worker in cali i can tell you 1. 20-25 a hour is no where near able to live on that.
2. Introduction position in the trades pays more.
Its sad that pay is so low. Inflation outgrew wages by far now dveryones broke

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hah! you should try making $14 hourly! I did that for a while and paid my bills. I am a Ca resident too!

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We pay 25 per hour for the grunt worker grinding trim and packing tubes. lol damn this industry is greedy. Someone running a lab should be at 50 per hr and if has a few workers under them like that depending on ones exsperanse they should get flat rate 1k day. I’m working a lab right now for a guy that payed me for my equipment and I have a deal to him and training his guys and I’m making 1k per day flat rate and I’m rocking 16hr days but only exspected to do 12hr days I just like to work. Lol

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I work as an extraction specialist in New England territory and started out at $14/hr. I have a bachelor’s degree in chemistry too. Is starting out this low normal in this industry? How long should it take until the pay is comparable to pharmaceutical jobs?

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$14 an hour is such a low pay imo. At that point you’re just a slave feeding the machine and hitting numbers for your license holder.
Hopefully the industry pay goes up as it gets more exposure and extractors get more knowledgable. Be picky about the jobs you accept especially if you’re bringing your own knowledge and previous extraction experience. Sorry I don’t have a better answer for your question I haven’t found an ideal situation myself yet

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Its a production based job so every company is different depending on how much you are processing. I work in a small market in Arizona and our lab is processing 200LBS a week of trim and we start our techs at 15-17 hour.

Once you gain experience in the industry you’ll be worth more because you can show that you can produce. A college degree doesn’t show you can produce in the industry it just shows you know how the process works.

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Yeah that much work for $17 an hour is shit. Especially since Arizona has absolutely no testing for the dispensaries you would think they could spend money elsewhere like paying their employees better.

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I’m watching the game and just saw the 2nd part of your answer which is basically what I was saying. It depends what you’re bringing to the job to start as well

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You put weed in tubes and turn knobs for 17 bucks an hour. 4 10 hour shift 3 day weekends I dont know anyone that would pass up that opportunity. If you want to talk about shit work for 17 bucks an hour roll up to any school and talk to a teacher about what they have to do for 17 bucks an hour

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Really? What part of the country. Because on the west coast noone and I truly me noone not teachers nobody is doing skilled labor for 17 thats a insult.

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Arizona. Minimum wage is 10.50

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What do you mean by this?

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You get what you pay for and $15/hr is crazy low considering the risk associated with dealing with a lot of the solvents used in the industry, the stress associated with handling such high value goods, the crazy hours, and the intense need for attention to detail. Plus it is very much skilled work as others have mentioned. It is very difficult finding quality workers who are intelligent, hard working, reliable, wanting to grow and learn, and can handle stress, communicate well, and multitask. Hopefully these dang CA regulators loosen the noose on these taxes so we can pay an employee enough so that they never have to worry about paying rent, eating, transportation and other essentials of life. When an employee starts stressing about money at the end of the month they get distracted and their work will likely suffer. Plus if the management team isn’t visible to large of gaps in pay can cause resentment. This is a sure fire way to destroy your work environment. Also workers start doing funny shit like being passive aggressive, working just enough, not being committed to the team, purposely letting shit slide that shouldn’t and much more.

As a company your employee’s are your #1 asset and you should treat them accordingly. If you can’t pay more you better figure out other incentives that your employees actually see as valuable like equity at 1yr, 2yr and so forth.

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It’s Arizona 90% trim run slabs white labeled to each $15 an hour is fine. Go to a Colorado dispensary where they have test results posted on the concentrates. Arizona doesn’t have the tests posted for their concentrates anywhere on the packaging or available to patients.

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I agree you get what you pay for at the end of the day. You’re probably somebody who doesn’t have a problem finding quality employees with that attitude either.

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Yeah everyone knows that teachers are underpaid, but that has nothing to do with how much an employee should get paid in this industry.

Opportunity? Its only an opportunity if their is a chance to grow and save for/invest in your future. Are their benefits? W2’s? Paid Vacation? Sick Time? Paid Overtime? Social Security? Unemployment? 401K? Health Insurance? Life Insurance? Without these benefits saving for the future can be rough depending on where you live. Im in CA.

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