THE “typical Barbadian” is paid between $200 and $499 each week, works for a company that provides “personal and miscellaneous services”, and spends a third of his earnings on food.
This information was gleaned from data posted on the Barbados Statistical Service’s (BSS) website, and presented by Dr DeLisle Worrell during his keynote address yesterday at the BSS Advocacy Forum On Statistics at the Frank Collymore Hall as part of Statistics Week.
While the average wage was usually determined by taking the total earnings of all Barbadians and dividing it by the number of workers, Worrell said he used the BSS statistics to determine the wages of an average employee.
He said the statistics showed that 33, 000 people worked for between $200 and $499 weekly, another 19,100 worked for between $500 and $999 per week, 3, 700 earned between $1 000 and $1 300 weekly, while 4,100 Barbadians took home more than
$1,300 per week.
Moreover, the economist, who will become Governor of the Central Bank of Barbados in another two weeks, said 27, 500 people were employed in companies that provided personal and miscellaneous services, 26, 800 worked for Government and those two categories employed double the number that worked for the industry that drove the island’s economy – tourism, where 13 800 were employed.
Construction, wholesale and retail provided the bulk of other sources of employment.
“The BSS website also helps us to assess the impact of the global economic recession on the Barbadian employment situation in some detail” said Dr Worrell.
The recession has pushed up unemployment to about 10 per cent despite measures taken by businesses to mitigate the effects through voluntary cuts in working hours and similar work sharing schemes.
“Unfortunately, however, many Barbadians have been out of work for sometime and the number continues to grow.” he commented.
In addition, Worrell, who is executive director of the Centre For Money And Finance in Trinidad and Tobago, said BSS statistics showed that the typical Barbadian spent one third of his earnings on food and another one third on housing, public utilities and household supplies.
“Thanks, no doubt, to the comprehensive Government provision, the typical household needs to spend very little on education and medical services” added Dr. Worrell
Praising the work of the BSS, Worrell said economic discussion would be richer and economic policy more effective if the people were informed by facts from sources like the BSS. (GE)
-end-
courtesy of the Nation News, Barbados.
Geralyn Edward
