Are you getting enough? If not, now may be the time to ask. After three years of slogging through what likely ranks one of the worst ad recessions since the early 1990s, magazine adspend appears to be recovering.

While average salaries have increased in every department since our 2002 survey—one would expect them to, given inflation—some of us have done better than others. The big winners are those in management, where the average salary of $77,785 represents a 21.7% jump over 2002. Other departmental averages shake out like this: advertising, $62,709 (+1.1%); new media, $57,543 (+12.9%); editorial, $51,281 (+4.7%); art, $46,347 (+1.3%); production, $44,656 (+7.3%); and circulation, $41,100 (+0.64%).

But those numbers come with a proviso. While the response rate to this year’s survey leapt by 50.3% to 451 submissions—our highest-ever total since we started this check-up in 1990—you’ve got to remember that respondents remain anonymous and represent only a handful of the estimated 6,000 full-time magazine personnel employed in this country.

A long-standing industry complaint is the utter dearth of data; Statistics Canada hasn’t reported on us since 1999. No publisher, save Aurora, Ont.-based trade publisher CLB Media, seems willing to share with the world what they’re paying their people. (Look for CLB’s numbers in these pages early next year.)

That said, our survey shows a 7.1% overall jump in compensation levels since 2002. The highest reported salary this year was from, surprise, an advertising director hauling down $166,000. That’s considerably lower than the highest-ever reported salary—$310,000, reported by a group publisher back in the glory days of 2000, followed by an ad director who confessed to raking in $245,000, also in 2000. Still chump change compared to, say, what Rogers Media grand frommage Tony Viner took home in 2003—$1.3 million, before stock options.

Now, while that’s more in a year than most of us can expect to make in a couple of decades—drinks on Tony next time you see him—the truth is that most of us aren’t looking for better paying jobs. In other words, we’re happy where we are. The chart below suggests that the happiest among us are male editorial staffers, followed by management and sales types. Among females, production and circulation personnel are most content to stay put. Polishing up their résumés are male online workers, with 67% looking to make a move. As for women, 70% of those in the production department are weighing their options.

Salary discrepancies along gender lines continue to be a troublesome fact. In all but one category (new media), males outearn females. The most glaring inequality occurs in the editorial suite, where men make 54.8% more (though, note, male respondents were, on average, five years older); in management, men earn 52.4% more, but were only three years older, on average. Message to patriarchs: come join us in the 21st century, why don’t you? Consumer titles continue to offer higher salaries on average than trade books, except in the management category. And circ size matters; the bigger the circ, the better the compensation. If it’s money you’re after, penetrate the upper management ranks—you’ll make the most there. If you can’t do that, advertising is your best bet.