Occupation / job
Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
The $41,330 midpoint for Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders sits $8,690 under the $50,020 the typical American job pays. That is a real living across much of the country and a thin one in expensive metros, so geography decides this more than seniority does.
With 6,900 employed nationally, Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders is a small occupation. Small occupations are quiet: few postings, slow turnover, and a real chance that the person you would replace is not going anywhere.
This work suits people who can hold quality steady through repetition, which is a real skill and one that machines have not entirely taken.
We carry no verified training length for Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
A quarter of Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders earn under $36,380 and a quarter over $49,550 — 1.4x, or $13,170 apart. Narrow spreads usually mean a pay schedule, which is stability bought at the price of upside.
A quarter of the field earns under $36,380 — $13,640 below the $50,020 the typical American job pays. That is the number to plan on for a first year, not the midpoint.
Avoid it if you would be unable to move should the plant close, or if repetitive work would grind you down.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 6,900 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.
What the spread tells you
The quarters are $36,380 and $49,550, a ratio of 1.4x. In a distribution this narrow, the biggest single lever on your pay in Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders is the cost of living where you do it.
Put in money rather than ratios: $36,380 at the 25th percentile, $41,330 at the midpoint, $49,550 at the 75th. $13,170 separates the quarter of Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $49,550, the 75th percentile, is worth $8,220 a year more than the $41,330 midpoint and $13,170 more than the $36,380 a quarter of Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders settle for.
It is $4,950 from $41,330 down to $36,380 but $8,220 up to $49,550. When a range leans this far upward, the interesting question is what puts someone in the top half, because the money is disproportionately there.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $19.87 at the midpoint for Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders, $17.49 at the 25th percentile and $23.82 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $41,330 figure is what employers pay employees. It is before tax and before deductions, it excludes the self-employed entirely, and it says nothing about anyone who does this work on their own account.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $41,330 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else