As you can see here, assuming that you work 365 days a year, by my math, you can only make about $177k. Given the posted average is $190k that implies that there are many values higher than $190k a year as well.
This leads me to believe there are one of two conclusions: 1. MSC is lying or 2. My math is wrong. I hope MSC isn’t lying to try and increase their recruiting, but I wouldn’t put it past them. That then leaves the option that my math is wrong. I know MSC has lots of weird little bonuses like night diff and other oddities that can drastically increase pay but aren’t listed on the pay scale.
Would any active MSC employees mind confirming or denying how accurate this, and other pay on the website is?
Different types of ships have different payscales. When I was there diesel ships paid 10% more than steamships. Why? Don’t ask me. The UNREP Oilers paid less than the dry cargo UNREP ships.
Like Seadog said, different ships have different pay scales. The data you’re using is the permanent base pay rate, which is the pay scale while on leave or on the smallest class of ships (Towing and Salvage). Pay is based on horsepower and tonnage. Which is dumb, but that is the union negotiated contract. There are also separate pay rates for watch standers and day workers. a 3 A/E standing watch on an ammo ship has a lower base pay than a 3 A/E working as a dayworker on a tanker.
Overtime is also very easy to come by at MSC and sometimes you dont even do extra work. Night Differential, for example, is overtime while in a US port and on watch from the hours of 1700-0800. So if you’re a 3 A/E on an ammunition ship in San Diego, the 8hr watch you stand from 0001-0800 is all OT plus your base pay.
All that said, 190K is disingenuous. They are fudging the numbers in their favor to improve recruiting. Can you do it, sure. Is it common, it wasn’t when I worked there. I hit 190k as a 2/M working 10 months my last year employed at MSC, 2022. I was also 3 months overdue.
It’s possible, but as mentioned before, it would take the right ship. Even then as a 3AE, you’re looking at having to be out sailing for at least 10 months a year to make 190k/year.
The other reason it’s also probably a bit higher is that almost every MSC ship is currently sailing short at least one (sometimes two) 3AEs at the moment and having to pick up the other vacant 3AEs collaterals and standing additional duties.
Current FY24 manning requirement for 3AE is 300.
They just reported they are at 168 or 132 short. A fill of 56% and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those are sailing temp promote in 2AE positions.
You are using the shore/pool base bay of $69k (“Perm” tab on the pay scale spreadsheet), but the shipboard base pay is (average between the most common vessel types - the other tabs on the pay scale spreadsheet) $83-86k for Watchstanders and $105-110k for Dayworkers. And the shipboard overtime rate is $61-62/hr for both.
Just using your own spreadsheet math at the actual $63/hr OT rate that’s $119k in overtime. Add that to the actual base and your calculation puts it at $200-230k if you worked every single day of the year with OT on every week day too. So that 190 doesn’t seem to far-fetched, mathematically anyway, for diehard homesteaders with no relief.
For reference, as a new 3A/E in 2006 I made $140k working 10-months/yr on T-AOEs and T-AOs.
Thank you very much. Do you have access to the full pay scale for 2024? The website for MSC only has the perm pay scale that I linked here. The MSC website has the full 2021 payscale for all ships, but not the 2024 one haha! To get the numbers you have I had to find the percent increase in the wage from 2021 to 2024 at about 7%, then the numbers add up.
The different tabs refer to vessel name abbreviations, grouped by vessel class. For example the East chart, last tab starts with DI,GRU,KAN are the T-AO tankers. The first tab “Perm” is the non-shipboard permanent base pay.
I remember the days of listening to my classmates celebrate their hiring by MSC — chattering endlessly about the remarkably high wages.
I think most, if not all of them quit after their first and only full year there… because it was an actual full year at sea followed by a call to return to work after two weeks at home. Yah, you’ll make a lot of money but you will work harder and longer than anyone else in the US flag fleet to earn it.
Say harder in the sense that the inept office managers can’t (won’t) get you relief most times, so you’re stuck where you might not want to be for longer periods of time which sucks ass — just to finally get relieved… only for them to have the audacity to ask you back within a couple weeks.
When there isn’t a huge demand for sealift and you’re prepo a lot of the time I can see where that is certainly easy. I’m no stranger to Diego Garcia gray hull life.
Yeah their office is really bad. You definitely have to be willing to try to manage your own relief. And that’s not really possible anymore either. To any current CIVMARs stuck that may be reading this, don’t answer that call. Go back to work when you’re ready. I know people who literally took 8-15 months off and still had a job to go back to.
I’m not talking pre-po/union, I’m talking federal employee CIVMAR. The only time I didn’t have time to get off the ship was CLF anti-piracy off the Horn of Africa. Didn’t really want to go to base in Djibouti anyways. The “easy” part comes from the redundancy of personnel, which is non-existent now too I guess. Anyways, I’m rambling. Your point stands, there are a lot of better jobs out there.
We shouldn’t have anyone on the ground in that shithole. Ever.
If that place got its act together and had 4/4 rotations it’d be inticing. The amount of people I’d see begging to get off a ship and the number in the APMC waiting on assignments with seemingly nothing done about it always boggled my mind.
$34,972 bonus, Mandatory weekend OT (32 hrs, bi-weekly)
MSC MOU w/USCG designates that only STCW watch-standers are subject to the Work/Rest rules. (36 CFR, p15.1111) That said, most ships have unmanned engine rooms. (Duty engineer on call at night); majority of 3 A/E’s are not watch-standers, therefore, they can average 2 to 4 hours OT/Day in addition to that 32 hr bi-weekly weekend figure. (+PMH, AMMO pay, Haz-duty, etc…) MSC manning and Fit/Fill metric is also so strained that most ships need their officers to work as much as they can safely do so… (under the close watch of the CHENG who is capped, but that’s another topic…)
Cool story. You wanna buy the world a coke? Go right ahead.
I’ve been there, and outside the base — along with most of Africa on bulk carriers where we’d spend weeks in port. I’m not going to even begin to pretend to like what I saw or paint it as some kind of paradise.
Based on your comments, it seems to me that you are close minded individual…i guess all that traveling you have done has been for nothing.
I will say this, Africa is a very vast continent, with many places that many people would definitely consider paradise, if you like feel free to google it, but either way you are entitled to your own opinion even if it’s ignorant and untrue!
