By Giff Johnson
For Variety

MAJURO — The job market in the Marshall Islands improved slightly last year compared to 2005, with the number of jobs increasing modestly in both the private sector and the national government. But private sector jobs paid an average of just over $5,000 annually in contrast to government salaries that averaged more than double this amount.
The private sector showed improvement following a bad year in 2005, when a former tuna processing plant went bankrupt, sending more than 600 Marshallese into the ranks of the unemployed. In 2004, the number of jobs in the business sector was 3,723. In 2005, that number plummeted to 3,112 when the tuna processing plant went bankrupt, a government report released Wednesday showed. Last year, jobs in the private sector increased by eight percent over 2005, to 3,368. Despite this small increase, unemployment in the country is estimated at more than 34 percent.
But while private sector jobs are on the rise again — and though the expected reopening of a tuna processing plant under Shanghai Deep Sea Fisheries Co. management later this year promises to add several hundred more jobs — the government sector is still the place to work in the Marshall Islands when it comes to salary levels.
A report issued by the Marshall Islands government’s Economic Policy, Planning and Statistics Office states that government salaries range from more than double to nearly triple those in the business sector. Only average salaries paid by non-governmental organizations were lower than those in the business sector, excluding banks.
The government payroll continues to dominate the local economy, the EPPSO report said. The government’s wage bill of $43.5 million accounted for 46 percent of the total salaries paid in the Marshall Islands in 2006, the report said.
According to the EPPSO report, Marshall Islands workers at the U.S. Army’s missile testing range at Kwajalein Atoll received an average salary nearly triple that of people in the private sector. Government salaries ranged from double to nearly triple the private sector pay rate.
The only exception in the private sector is the banking industry, where the average salary is more than in any other sector of the this central Pacific nation’s economy, government included, according to the EPPSO report that is based on statistics from the Marshall Islands Social Security Administration.
Bank workers pulled in an average annual salary of $17,040 in FY2006, EPPSO reported. This compares to the rest of the business sector, where workers received an average wage of $5,420. While that is low compared to both the government and the banks, it is a four percent improvement over the average wage in the private sector in 2005, and nine percent higher than the average wage of $4,968 in 2002.
Next to bank employees, people working at the U.S. Army base received the highest salaries at an average of $16,103 last year.
They were followed, in order, by government agencies ($15,563), foreign embassies ($12,860), Marshall Islands government ($12,121), public enterprises of the government ($12,041), local governments ($7,162), private sector ($5,420) and non-governmental organizations ($5,014).
The average salary for all government, private sector and U.S. Army workers amounted to $11,480 in 2006 — an increase of nearly three percent over $11,173 in 2005.
Overall in 2006, 447 new jobs were added compared to 2005, mostly in construction and fishing, the EPPSO report said, adding that government employment increased only marginally over FY 2005, going up by 83 jobs last year.