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Pay · 51-9193

Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders earn $41,330 a year at the midpoint

Starting pay is close to the middle here: the 25th percentile is $36,380 against a median of $41,330, so the first years are not a long climb.

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$41,330median a year · United States
$19.87an hour $44,940average 6,900people
Nine in ten people in this work earn between the two ends. The shaded part is the middle half — where most people are.
$36,38025th $41,330median $49,55075th
$33,43010th percentile $62,34090th percentile
$36,380a year at the 25th percentile, nearer a first job
$68,170best-paying state · Nebraska
$31,700lowest-paying state · Michigan
+65%top state against the national median
  • Read the spread, not the middle. The median is the midpoint across everyone in the occupation, most of them years into the work. A beginner starts nearer the 10th to 25th percentile, which is why the spread is published alongside it.
  • What the figure counts. The figure counts base pay plus tips, commissions and production bonuses. It leaves out the self-employed, unpaid family workers, private household workers, and the value of benefits or profit sharing.
  • The annual figure is arithmetic. For hourly occupations the annual figure is the hourly rate times 2080 hours. It is a calculation, not observed earnings: part time is the norm in retail and food service.
  • Where you live moves it more than your resume does. National figures. A state or metro area can sit far from the national number, and that gap is usually larger than any difference a resume makes.
  • Not in these numbers. Growth and annual openings are not in this dataset. They come from the separate Employment Projections tables, where an opening is a modelled ten year average and not a posted vacancy.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025. Retrieved through the BLS Public Data API on 2026-08-13. bls.gov/oes “BLS.gov cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from BLS.gov.”

A short climbThe 25th percentile, $36,380, is within 12% of the median.
State matters a lotThe same job pays $68,170 in Nebraska and $31,700 in Michigan — a gap of $36,470 a year.

Cooling and freezing equipment operator earnings, from starting pay to the top 10%

Pick the job, where you work and how long you have done it. The range comes from the published wage percentiles for that job.

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Resumes for cooling and freezing equipment operators and tenders

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  • Recorded temperatures, amounts of materials processed, or test results on report forms.
  • Monitored pressure gauges, ammeters, flowmeters, thermometers, or products, and adjusted controls to maintain specified conditions, such as feed rate, product consistency, temperature, air pressure, and machine speed.
  • Read dials and gauges on panel control boards to ascertain temperatures, alkalinities, and densities of mixtures, and turn valves to obtain specified mixtures.

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This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The owner of tiersi.com has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.

Adjacent work, and what it pays

Occupations in the same group of the federal classification — the usual next steps, or the ones beside this one.

Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders$41,330
Tire Builders$57,390+$16,060 Paper Goods Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders$50,270+$8,940 Adhesive Bonding Machine Operators and Tenders$46,460+$5,130 Molders, Shapers, and Casters, Except Metal and Plastic$46,170+$4,840 Cleaning, Washing, and Metal Pickling Equipment Operators and Tenders$43,530+$2,200

Ranked 681 of 788 by median pay

Better paid than 14% of the occupations in the survey.

  1. 679 Door-to-Door Sales Workers, News and Street Vendors, and Related Workers $41,380
  2. 680 Data Entry Keyers $41,340
  3. 681 Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders $41,330
  4. 682 Counter and Rental Clerks $41,300
  5. 683 Machine Feeders and Offbearers $41,220

Cooling and freezing equipment operator wages by state

Across 34 states the median ranges by 2.15 times. Figures are the 2025 survey.

State Median a year Where most start 10th to 90th Employed
Nebraska $68,170 $45,090 $45,090 — $75,240 60
Iowa $62,520 $41,720 $41,720 — $82,790 290
Indiana $55,730 $39,090 $39,090 — $82,190 50
Missouri $53,940 $41,430 $41,430 — $62,220 200
New Jersey $51,460 $38,170 $38,170 — $75,610 100
Washington $50,870 $47,770 $47,770 — $53,950 60
Illinois $49,200 $46,260 $46,260 — $65,950 60
Idaho $48,360 $43,420 $43,420 — $72,800 90
Ohio $48,160 $39,730 $39,730 — $76,180 240
Wisconsin $47,060 $45,450 $45,450 — $57,990 100
Minnesota $46,910 $39,420 $39,420 — $68,080 100
Massachusetts $46,800 $35,480 $35,480 — $58,700 —
Georgia $46,770 $37,690 $37,690 — $59,100 540
Colorado $46,160 $43,240 $43,240 — $53,860 130
South Dakota $45,520 $36,030 $36,030 — $55,870 80
Utah $45,500 $22,990 $22,990 — $45,500 70
New York $45,460 $36,140 $36,140 — $69,180 160
Florida $45,270 $38,470 $38,470 — $51,570 130
California $42,100 $35,080 $35,080 — $67,470 310
Connecticut $41,080 $36,300 $36,300 — $48,510 70
Kentucky $40,840 $38,470 $38,470 — $46,980 70
Oregon $40,030 $32,570 $32,570 — $60,840 120
South Carolina $39,640 $35,140 $35,140 — $60,500 60
Oklahoma $39,630 $34,740 $34,740 — $64,690 130
Pennsylvania $39,360 $33,430 $33,430 — $54,330 760
North Carolina $39,030 $35,420 $35,420 — $56,380 420
Mississippi $38,200 $23,760 $23,760 — $39,940 360
Arkansas $38,090 $34,990 $34,990 — $52,320 270
Hawaii $37,990 $35,700 $35,700 — $48,890 110
Tennessee $37,780 $29,210 $29,210 — $46,490 50
Texas $35,810 $25,230 $25,230 — $62,920 510
Virginia $35,370 $34,700 $34,700 — $45,860 170
Alabama $35,280 $22,820 $22,820 — $38,860 280
Michigan $31,700 $28,990 $28,990 — $58,730 290

Cooling and freezing equipment operator pay rate, hourly and yearly

Starts at this job’s median. Change the rate or the hours; a full-time year is 40 hours for 52 weeks.

$41,330a year

Examples

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Questions people ask

What is a cooling and freezing equipment operator’s yearly income?

A cooling and freezing equipment operator makes a median of $41,330 a year (2025 survey). The middle half earn between $36,380 and $49,550.

What is a cooling and freezing equipment operator’s hourly pay rate?

The median pay rate is $19.87 an hour; the average is $44,940 a year.

What is the starting pay for a cooling and freezing equipment operator?

Starting pay is usually near the 25th percentile, $36,380 a year, and sometimes as low as the 10th, $33,430.

Which state pays cooling and freezing equipment operators and tenders the most?

Nebraska, with a median of $68,170 a year.

How many people work as cooling and freezing equipment operators and tenders?

About 6,900 in the United States — number 681 of 788 occupations by median pay.

Work that pays about the same

Median pay within $110 of what cooling and freezing equipment operators and tenders earn — $41,330 a year — but not always the same spread.

See all 788 occupations