10500 paid jobs on the BES islands

In 2013, 10,500 people in the Caribbean Netherlands were in a paid job. In total, workers in Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba occupied more than 9,000 jobs. The vast majority of these jobs, some 7,500, could be found on Bonaire; it emerged from figures published Thursday by Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).
In its research, CBS converted all jobs occupied for less than one year by the same employee, into a whole year. If two workers occupied the same job for half a year each, this was counted as one position. This rule was applied to both full-time and part-time jobs. As a result of that the number of employees was higher than the number of jobs in 2013. CBS research was limited to jobs provided by employers. Jobs through self-employment were not included. The available data sources did not make it possible for CBS to count the number of hours worked per job. In the European Netherlands, relatively fewer women work as an employee than men. In addition, women in the European Netherlands earn on the average over 40 per cent less than their male counterparts.

The article published in The Daily Herald is mainly focused on the data of Bonaire. The data for Saba (in Dutch but far more complete than in this article) can be found using the link mentioned at the end of this text.

Most full-time and parttime jobs in Bonaire make gross annual wages ranging between US $10,000 and US $20,000. The second largest group makes gross annual wages ranging between US $20,000 and US $30,000. The gross annual wages of women employed on Bonaire was on average 13 per cent lower than that of male employees. But the number of jobs employed by women employees is seven percent higher than that of male employees. The government sector is the largest employer in Bonaire (17 per cent of the total number of jobs). Other important sectors of employment in Bonaire are trade (12 per cent), hotel and catering (11 per cent), commercial services (10 percent), health and welfare (9 per cent) and cultural, recreational and other services (8 per cent).

For Statia and Saba the same data as for Bonaire are available. These were not included in the report because the numbers were smaller. However, for Saba one can get the overview via this link.