Occupation / job
Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle 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
At $48,040 against $50,020, Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders sits $0.95 an hour under the typical American job. A gap that small is not a reason to choose it or to rule it out; the spread and the entry cost are where the real decision is.
Employment as Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders is 14,280 nationally. At that size a large city holds a working market and a small one holds almost none, so where you live changes the number of employers available to you by an order of magnitude.
This work suits people who can hold quality steady through repetition, which is a real skill and one that machines have not entirely taken.
No verified preparation time is on file for Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
The middle half runs $41,130 to $59,830 — $1,558 a month between the quarters, a 1.5x ratio. Spreads this narrow are usually set by a grade or a scale, so the negotiation you are imagining probably is not available.
Even the bottom quarter, under $41,130, lands within $8,890 of the $50,020 typical American wage. The downside of Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders is not really the money.
Avoid it if you would be unable to move should the plant close, or if repetitive work would grind you down.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 14,280 figure counts people already working as Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders, not everyone who trained and never got hired. Without a licensing register to divide by, a rate here would be an invented denominator.
What the spread tells you
The quarters are $41,130 and $59,830, a ratio of 1.5x. In a distribution this narrow, the biggest single lever on your pay in Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders is the cost of living where you do it.
In cash terms the middle half of Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders runs $41,130 to $59,830 — $18,700 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $48,040.
Between $41,130 and $59,830 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $48,040. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $11,790; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $18,700.
The distance from the midpoint up to $59,830 is $11,790 — well over the $6,910 down to $41,130. Distributions leaning this way mean the median understates what the upper half of Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders earns, and half the field is in that upper half.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $19.77 at the bottom quarter, $23.09 at the midpoint, $28.76 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $48,040 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.
The hourly number on this page is $48,040 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else