You might assume that CEOs are the people who get the biggest bonuses – the 'big cheese' job roles with the largest pay – but thanks to exclusive data from the Maritime HR Forum, we've learnt that 89% of shipping people who received bonuses of 100% or more last year are commercial chartering staff and 67% of those lucky people were based in Europe.
This sounds like a huge number but once it's put into context, you needn't write that resignation letter just yet. Only 1.3% of all shipping staff received a bonus of 100% or more last year, meaning that 99% live in the real world!
It all depends what your base salary is of course and one thing that is clear is that even those charterers who earn the biggest bonuses (we tend to call them 'freight traders' in this modern world) tend to earn a very similar salary to their traditional chartering brethren.
Here at Spinnaker, we're often asked how some organisations have continued to pay capesize bonuses during the recession years and the answer is that is it largely the modern day operator or freight trading organisations who have been able to do that – the flipside of the risk coin that is being exposed to both cargo commitments and tonnage ownership combined with chartered tonnage is that when you get it right, there’s a much money to be made in a falling market as there is in a rising market. Sometimes the clever people do get their just rewards and are being well looked after by their employers!
To find out more about the Maritime HR Forum and salary surveys, contact Michele Hawkins at [email protected]. For commercial recruitment contact Eric Branson [email protected].
