Income disparity is widening. Construction workers’ salaries have increased considerably since 2010. But while locals are earning 21.7 percent more, non-residents’ salaries deflated. In Q3, a gaping 54 percent separated them.

The difference between wages paid in the construction sector for locals and non-residents continues to widen every month, reaching a record chasm in the third quarter of this year. As the demand for construction labour goes up with multiple investment projects in the pipeline here like the new casinos, light rail and bridge spanning Macau, Hong Kong and Zhuhai, construction companies are cutting down on foreigners’ salaries while increasing that of local ones.
According to official data released yesterday by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) the real wage index of local construction workers topped 121.7 points in the third quarter, a 6 percent increase on the previous quarter (114.9 points). The overall wage index (that includes locals and non-residents) marginally increased 0.6 percent in the last quarter to 94.1 points.
This difference in wage increase shows that the inequality between construction workers is expanding fast. For this index, the Statistics and Census Service uses 2010 as the base year. Which means that since that year local construction workers saw their salaries increase some 21.7 percent, while non-residents saw it decrease more than 6 percent. The statistics office doesn’t reveal a specific index for foreign workers and this group is aggregated in the overall index, which went down by at least 6 percent. This means that construction wages for non-residents went down much further than 6 percent.
As a consequence, the difference between local and non-resident wages in the construction sector reached a record in the third quarter, with both indices (local and overall) separated by 27.6 points. In the second quarter, the difference was ‘only’ 21.4 points.

Growing disparity

The report also reveals that the salary inequality in the construction sector grows as we move up the ranks. In the third quarter, a non-resident construction worker received MOP573 per day, while a local employee in the same position got MOP883, some 54 percent more. For a specialised post like a structural iron erector, however, the disparity could reach a staggering 75 percent (locals get around a daily MOP1,192, while non-residents pick up MOP680).
In the period between July and the end of September, the average daily wage of construction workers increased 2.3 percent to MOP672 compared to the previous quarter, while the wage of local construction workers was MOP883, up 7.0 percent, three times more. Concrete formwork carpenters saw their salaries go up by 11.2 percent, the largest increase in the construction sector. On the other hand, carpenters received 11.3 percent less than in the second quarter, the statistics bureau said.
With regard to construction materials, the average price of concrete increased by 3.5 percent quarter-on-quarter, at MOP686 per cubic metre in the third quarter of 2014; the average price of spiral and round reinforcing steel bars was MOP4,959 per tonne, down 1.9 percent. Meanwhile, the price index of construction materials for residential buildings (130.1) in the third quarter of 2014 increased quarterly by 0.9 percent.



From: macaubusinessdaily