Bankers, insurers ranked highest paid employees

Employees in the financial services and insurance sectors are still the best paid in the country while those in water supply, sewerage and waste management firms earned the lowest average wages, fresh economic data shows.

The Economic Survey 2017 released Wednesday shows that State-employed workers offering financial and insurance services last year pocketed an average Sh145,233 per month, while their counterparts in the private sector received a monthly pay cheque of Sh139,793.

This represented a 1.9 per cent and 3.3 per cent year-on-year increase respectively, a growth which kept these employees as some of the better paid in the country.

The public sector, which is under the spotlight due to its huge wage bill that is a drain on the national budget, rewarded its employees with an average monthly wage of Sh56,923-- keeping them ahead of their private counterparts with monthly pay of Sh52,443.

“The average annual earnings in the private sector increased by 5.7 per cent compared to 6.3 per cent in the public sector in the period under review,” says the report.

Using the average wage as a yard stick in assessing sector earnings may, however, not paint a clear picture since senior staff ordinarily skew the rankings given that a majority of employees earn less than the average pay.

Average wage includes remuneration such as bonuses and allowances.

Workers in institutions supplying electricity, gas and air-conditioning on average earned Sh121,998 at the end of every month, ranking them second in the private sector.

In the public sector, transport and storage workers came in second, receiving an average monthly wage of Sh132,578.

This can be attributed to more expensive recruitments made during the year to help run the railway and revamped Mombasa port, projects which have cost the government billions of shillings.

Firms in administrative and support services space remained the third-most lucrative employer in the private sector, registering average wages of Sh116,156 per month.

Public sector employees providing accommodation and food services were ranked third in their sector where they are said to earn average monthly wages of Sh121,877.

The State continued to be the better employer with teachers, for instance, seeing their average monthly wage increase 5.5 per cent to Sh48,616.

This payout is expected to increase significantly going forward when recent salary increments are factored in.

Institutions that are majority-owned by government as well as parastatals were the highest payers giving their staff an average monthly wage of Sh98,379 and Sh74,422 respectively.