In 2003, the average hotel worker earned about a $17,472 annual wage, according to the newly released results of occupations and wages in the hotel industry that the Department of Statistics compiled.
In 2003, the average hotel worker earned $336 per week, $11 less than in 2002, according to the Department of Statistics. It amounted to $336 per week, $11 less than the year before, the 2003 survey showed.
It also concluded that in 2003, the average weekly wage for males was higher than that of females in all major occupational groups except for professionals where the average weekly wage was the same.
The report provided an analysis of just over 11,000 persons employed in the hotel industry, over 90 percent of whom were employed on the island of New Providence.
The annual wage was in stark contrast to approximately $23,000 that according to the Department of Statistics reflects the annual wage of workers employed in the private sector.
“This is very important because it matches the cost of living or the retail price index, as the retail price index moves you see the wages and salaries move as well,” said Carmen Dawkins, assistant director of the Department of Statistics. “We also keep track of it to do a progression in wages and let the country know how wages and occupations are moving along.”
At the other end of the scale, the report said that the lowest average wage was $227 per week that workers in the elementary group were earning like office helpers and cleaners, messengers, luggage porters and deliverers.
Additionally, the report showed that both males and females worked an average of 39 hours per week.
But an executive of the hotel union said workers are typically working around 37 and a half hours per week.
Although he expressed no major complaints about salaries in the hotel sector, Secretary General of the Bahamas Hotel Catering and Allied Workers Union Leo Douglas said the reality is that some workers are actually making even less that what the Department of Statistics reported.
“When you look at the hotel industry-you will find that people are below the $300 bracket in many categories and you will only find that some [workers] in the engineering department may actually be making above that for a five day workweek,” Mr. Douglas said.
He also factored in the issue of short workweeks that many hotel workers are forced to endure at some properties, reporting that in some cases employees work 22 hours per week for two to three days.
The current five-year contract that governs relations between hotel workers, their union representatives and management at various properties expires in 2008.
Research determined that within the hotel industry, service workers, shop and market sales workers accounted for the largest occupational group, comprising 39 percent of all workers.
In the Technicians and Associate Professionals and Clerks group, the ratio of females to males was almost 2 to 1. On the other hand, in the group that represents skilled agriculture and fisheries workers males outnumbered females almost 4 to 1.
For craft and related trade workers, there were 10 males to every one female.
The report is based on information obtained from a study of leading hotels which accounted for approximately 50 percent of total employment in all hotels operating in The Bahamas in 2003.
The assessment tracks persons employed in the sector by occupation, sex, average hours worked per week and average basic wages per week for the year 2003.
The Department of Statistic started keeping data on the sector in 1999 and in the ensuing years wages remained relatively the same, according to officials.
“But in 2002 the wages went down and a lot of things could account for that because in that year there was a lot of layoffs in the hotel industry and maybe that accounted for the decrease in wages,” Ms. Dawkins said.
In recent years, there have been substantial developments in the hotel sector, with Kerzner International revising its Atlantis expansion project and the Baha Mar development group acquiring the Wyndham Nassau Resort and Crystal Palace Casino, the Nassau Beach Hotel and the former government-owned Radisson Cable Beach Resort along Cable Beach for a billion-dollar projected expansion.
The government has also aggressively been pursuing its plan of securing major anchor properties for every Family Island as a means of boosting local economies.
With a Gross Domestic Product of almost $6 billion, The Bahamas maintains the third highest per capita income ($18,000) among independent states in the Western Hemisphere, following only the United States and Canada.
By: Tameka Lundy, The Bahama Journal
