During what is expected to be the slowest first quarter for newbuilding orders in over a quarter of a century, the Maritime HR Association has looked at what happened to newbuilding salaries in 2015.
The full report is only available to Maritime HR Association members, but highlights include:
Salaries & bonuses
- Professional Newbuilding staff have seen a decline in salaries across all of the major shipyard locations this year, with the exception of South Korea which has now overtaken China and Europe, and is hot on the heels of the US – compared to last year when they featured as the lowest earners.
- North America saw bonus values reduce at the Professional level as well, with a median payment equivalent to 3% of salary this year (compared to 8% last year). However, Europe saw significant increases at the upper level – from 5% to 15% of salary (perhaps to offset their more modest salary levels this year).
- We see a similar pattern at the Senior Professional level too – with some salary decreases (albeit to a lesser extent) while South Korea again experienced the largest increases.
- Senior Professional bonuses have remained fairly stable, in line with the less dramatic salary changes. North America saw the biggest increase, with a median value equivalent to 18% of salary, compared to 11% last year.
- Newbuilding staff in the US have always been paid well, but this year we see the gap with China and Europe increasing.
Management & development
- Survey data for China showed 7% of staff working at managerial or director level, compared to none just 2 years previously. In contrast, Japan shows the lowest proportion of professional staff and the greatest managerial presence. Trainee level roles seem uncommon throughout, with just 1% of Newbuilding staff surveyed operating at this level.
Ex pats
- As you might expect, ex-patriate staff feature fairly significantly in this field (12% of employees surveyed) – with most of those employed at Managerial level and very few at a junior level.
- South Korea employ the most ex-patriate staff, with 14% of workers there reported to be employed on these terms. This compares to just 6% in China and under 3% in Japan.
- Globally, expatriate staff are generally employed on higher wages than local staff. This is most prominent in China, where we see ex-pats earning around 50% more than their local colleagues on average
Want to know more? Please contact the HR Consulting team on +44 (0)1702 480142 or via [email protected]
Sarah Hutley, Compensation & Benefits Consultant, HR Consulting
