Production and Operating Supervisor Salary in Georgia: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A production and operating supervisor in Georgia earns a median of $69,170 a year, or about $33.25 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most front-line manufacturing supervisors in the state land between roughly $56,350 and $85,090, with the bottom tenth near $45,680 and the top tenth above $102,960. That median runs a little under the national figure, and Georgia’s flat state income tax shapes what actually lands in your bank account.

How Georgia pay compares to the national median

The national median for production and operating supervisors is $74,450, per BLS OEWS 2025. Georgia’s $69,170 sits about $5,280 below that, roughly 7 percent less. That gap is real but modest, and it reflects a lower overall wage base across much of the Southeast rather than a thin market. Georgia employs about 26,190 of these supervisors, one of the larger manufacturing-supervision workforces in the South, spread across automotive, food processing, carpet and flooring, paper, and aerospace plants.

The averages tell a similar story. Georgia’s mean wage for the role is $73,260, which sits above the state median of $69,170. When the mean runs ahead of the median, it usually means a cluster of high-paying plants, often in Savannah’s port-adjacent logistics and chemical operations or Augusta’s industrial corridor, is pulling the top of the range upward while the typical supervisor earns less. For a searcher deciding whether to take a supervisor seat in Georgia, the honest read is this: you give up a few thousand dollars against the national median on paper, then claw some of it back through a flat 5.39 percent state tax and lower housing costs than most coastal states.

Two things are worth holding onto from this comparison. First, the 7 percent gap is a median gap, not a ceiling. Georgia’s 90th percentile of $102,960 is a genuinely strong number for a front-line supervisor anywhere in the country, so the top of the Georgia market is competitive even if the middle runs light. Second, the gap narrows once you adjust for what a dollar buys. National wage figures are dragged up by high-cost coastal states where pay and rent both run high. A $69,170 salary in Gainesville or Dalton stretches further than a higher number in a metro where a modest house costs three times as much.

Production supervisor pay in Georgia by experience

BLS reports wages by percentile, which is the cleanest proxy for experience in a role like this. A newly promoted lead working their first supervisor shift sits near the 10th percentile. A seasoned plant supervisor running multiple lines or a full shift sits at the 75th or 90th. Here is how the Georgia numbers break down.

The spread from entry to senior is wide, about $57,280 from the 10th to the 90th percentile. That tells you the title alone does not set your pay. A supervisor at a small food-packaging plant in a rural county and a supervisor at a Savannah chemical or a metro-Atlanta automotive supplier carry the same job title and earn tens of thousands apart. The move from median to the 75th percentile, roughly a $15,920 jump, usually comes from three things: taking on a larger crew, running a more technical or hazardous process, or holding accountability for output and safety metrics that tie to a bonus. Crossing into the 90th percentile, above $102,960, generally means a senior or area-supervisor role at a large, capital-intensive plant.

One practical note for early-career readers: the 25th-percentile figure of $56,350 is what a competent supervisor with a few years of line-lead experience can realistically expect in their first full supervisory year. If an offer comes in below $50,000 for a full supervisor role with crew accountability, it sits near the bottom tenth of the Georgia market, and that is worth pushing back on.

It helps to read these percentiles as a pay ladder with measurable rungs. The step from entry ($45,680) to early career ($56,350) is about $10,670, and it is the rung most supervisors clear fastest, usually within two to three years as they prove they can hold a crew and a line. The step from early career to median ($69,170) is another $12,820, and it is where pay starts tracking the scope of what you run rather than just tenure. The two upper rungs, median to experienced ($85,090) and experienced to senior ($102,960), add $15,920 and $17,870 respectively. Those are the largest single jumps on the ladder, and they are also the hardest, because they require either a much larger span of control or a move to a higher-paying plant or metro. Knowing which rung your current offer sits on tells you exactly how much headroom you have and what it will take to climb.

For hourly framing, the same ladder runs from about $21.96 an hour at entry to $49.50 at the senior level. Shift differentials and overtime sit on top of that base in most Georgia plants, so a supervisor on nights or running a seven-day operation can earn well above the straight annual figure, especially in food processing and the port-area chemical plants where round-the-clock schedules are standard.

Production supervisor salary by Georgia metro

Where you work inside Georgia matters as much as your experience. The same role pays meaningfully more in Savannah and Augusta than in Dalton, the carpet-and-flooring capital where a deep supply of manufacturing labor holds wages down. Here are the five Georgia metros with the most reported employment for this role, per BLS OEWS 2025.

The metro spread is striking. A supervisor in Savannah earns a median of $81,370, while one in Dalton earns $59,370, a difference of $22,000 for the same nominal job. Savannah’s number reflects its port, its chemical and pulp operations, and the logistics build-out around the Georgia Ports Authority, all of which compete for experienced supervisors and bid pay up. Augusta benefits from its industrial and defense-adjacent base across the Georgia and South Carolina line.

Atlanta is the volume story. With 11,730 supervisors employed, the metro holds nearly half the state’s total, and its $71,310 median sits just above the statewide figure. The depth of the Atlanta market matters more than its median: with automotive assembly south of the city, food and beverage plants, and packaging and printing across the metro, it offers the most paths to move up or move sideways into a better-paying plant without relocating. Gainesville, the poultry-processing hub, lands near the state median at $69,640. Dalton trails the field because the carpet, flooring, and textile industry there runs on a large, settled labor pool, which is good for plant economics and tougher on supervisor pay.

It is also worth looking at where the jobs actually are versus where they pay best, because the two do not line up. Atlanta holds 11,730 of the state’s 26,190 supervisor jobs, nearly 45 percent of the total, yet its $71,310 median is only the third highest of the five metros. Savannah and Augusta pay more but employ far fewer supervisors, 1,100 and 1,690 respectively. The practical reading: Atlanta is where you go for opportunity and choice, while Savannah and Augusta are where you go for the single best paycheck if you can land one of the fewer seats. Gainesville’s 1,220 supervisors sit almost exactly at the state median, which makes it a useful benchmark, the metro is large enough to have a real market and priced right in the middle of it.

Dalton is the outlier on the low side, and the reason is structural rather than a sign of a weak market. The northwest Georgia carpet and flooring cluster is one of the most concentrated manufacturing economies in the country, and that density gives employers a deep, experienced labor pool to draw from. Deep supply holds wages down even when demand is steady. A supervisor there is not underpaid for the local market, the local market itself simply prices the role lower than the coast does.

The takeaway for anyone weighing a move: a Dalton-to-Savannah relocation inside the same state, doing the same job, is worth more than $22,000 a year at the median before you account for any difference in housing. Even an Atlanta-to-Savannah move, a much smaller leap, is worth roughly $10,060 at the median. Inside one state, geography is the highest-yield variable on this whole page.

Take-home pay after taxes in Georgia

Gross salary is not what you keep. Georgia levies a flat state income tax of 5.39 percent for the 2026 tax year, on top of federal income tax and FICA (Social Security and Medicare). The table below estimates take-home at each experience point for a single filer taking the standard deduction, with no other withholdings. Your real number shifts with filing status, retirement contributions, and benefits, so treat these as a clean baseline.

At the median, a Georgia production supervisor keeps about $53,966 a year, or roughly $4,497 a month, an effective all-in tax rate near 22 percent. The state’s slice of that, $3,081, is the cost of living somewhere that taxes income at all.

Notice how the effective rate climbs as you move up the ladder. At entry ($45,680), the all-in rate is about 19.2 percent, so you keep $36,927 and bank roughly $3,077 a month. At the experienced level ($85,090), the rate rises to about 24.4 percent, leaving $64,307, or $5,359 a month. At the senior level ($102,960), it reaches about 26.3 percent, leaving $75,916, or $6,326 a month. That climb is the federal side at work, since Georgia’s flat 5.39 percent applies the same rate to every dollar of taxable income while the federal brackets get steeper. The practical effect: a raise from the median to the senior level lifts your gross by $33,790 but your monthly take-home by only about $1,829, because higher federal brackets and FICA absorb part of each new dollar. That is not a reason to turn down the raise, it is a reason to model the net, not the gross, when you compare offers.

Georgia versus a no-income-tax state. Here is the comparison an AI overview will not run for you. Take the exact same $69,170 median salary to Texas, which charges no state income tax. The Texas supervisor nets about $57,047, while the Georgia supervisor nets $53,966. That is a gap of $3,081 a year in Texas’s favor, the entire amount being Georgia’s state income tax. Over ten years, holding pay flat, that is roughly $30,810 more kept in a no-tax state on paper. Before you pack the truck, though, that gap is exactly what Georgia’s lower housing costs are meant to offset, and in many Georgia metros they do.

That points to the number that actually matters: net pay minus local housing. A $3,081 tax advantage in Texas evaporates fast if your rent or mortgage runs a few hundred dollars more each month. A supervisor netting $4,497 monthly in Gainesville or Dalton, where housing is cheap, can keep more real spending money than a higher-paid peer in a pricey metro. Run your own offer, county, and filing status through the Georgia paycheck calculator before you compare two jobs. When you file, software like TurboTax handles Georgia’s flat-rate return and the federal side together, which is helpful if you pick up overtime or shift-differential pay that bumps your bracket.

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How to earn more as a production supervisor in Georgia

The data shows clear, concrete levers. Moving from the median to the 75th percentile is worth about $15,920 a year in Georgia, and these are the moves that get you there.

• Relocate within the state. The single biggest data-backed lever is geography. Savannah pays $22,000 more at the median than Dalton. If you are mobile, target the Savannah port corridor or the Augusta industrial belt over the carpet plants of the northwest.
• Get into Atlanta’s automotive and advanced-manufacturing base. The metro holds 11,730 supervisor jobs, the deepest pool in the state, which means the most openings, the most room to negotiate, and the clearest ladder into area-supervisor and plant-management roles above the $102,960 senior mark.
• Earn a recognized operations credential. A Lean Six Sigma Green or Black Belt, an APICS CPIM in production and inventory management, or an OSHA 30-hour safety certification all map directly to the metrics that drive supervisor bonuses. Structured courses through a platform like Coursera can build the Lean and supply-chain foundation that large Georgia plants pay for.
• Own a high-stakes process. Supervisors over hazardous, regulated, or capital-intensive lines (chemicals in Savannah, pulp and paper, aerospace) sit higher in the range than those over light assembly or packaging. Volunteering for the harder, more technical area is a pay move.
• Tie your pay to output. Push for a comp structure with a production, safety, or yield bonus. The gap between the 50th and 90th percentile is largely a bonus-and-accountability gap, not a base-pay one.
• Move up the title ladder. Crossing into the 90th percentile above $102,960 almost always means a senior, area, or shift-of-shifts supervisor role at a large plant. Treat the median supervisor seat as the floor of a longer climb, not the ceiling.

Job outlook for production supervisors in Georgia

BLS OEWS 2025 puts statewide employment at 26,190 production and operating supervisors, a substantial base anchored in Georgia’s manufacturing economy: automotive assembly and parts, food and poultry processing, carpet and flooring, paper, packaging, and a growing aerospace and logistics footprint around the ports. A workforce that size, concentrated heavily in metro Atlanta with strong secondary clusters in Augusta, Savannah, Gainesville, and Dalton, signals steady ongoing demand for front-line supervision rather than a niche market.

Supervisory roles also tend to be more durable than the line jobs beneath them. Automation thins the headcount of operators faster than it thins the need for someone to run the floor, manage people, and own safety and output. If you are scanning openings, a board like ZipRecruiter lets you filter by Georgia metro and by industry, useful given how much pay swings between Savannah and Dalton for the same title.

Related and higher-paying roles in Georgia

If you supervise on a plant floor, two adjacent Georgia roles bracket your pay in useful ways, both per BLS OEWS 2025.

A Supervisor of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers earns a median of $77,010 in Georgia, about $7,840 more than a first-line production supervisor’s $69,170. If your plant background leans heavily toward maintenance, equipment, and reliability, sliding into the mechanics-supervision track is a clear raise on the same kind of floor leadership.

An Inspector, Tester, Sorter, Sampler, and Weigher earns a median of $46,130, roughly $23,040 less than a production supervisor here. That gap is the value of stepping up from a quality or inspection seat into running the line. If you are an inspector eyeing the next move, supervisor pay is the target, and the experience-by-percentile table above shows the path.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), 2025; federal and Georgia 2026 tax parameters. Take-home figures are estimates for a single filer taking the standard deduction. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.