Average salaries?

[leapfrog]

In Spain, most DMs are doing it for free except at the bigger centers where they are usually working on a commssion basis by working hotels and pulling people in for Try A Dives or DSDs. Some DMs, if known to the owner and working towards Instructor can work either a half a day, 7 days a week for around 350 Euros or make 700 for working 10 hours a day, 7 days a week with the occasional day off when the owner sees that they are on the verge of collapse! Instructors make around 1200 Euros a month and it doesn't make much of a difference if they are OWSIs or MSDTs except the MSDTs find it easier to get the job in the first place.

Both DMs and instructors are expected to be good at selling courses and equipment in the shop. If they are not they will be moved on.

In the 5 Star IDC centers wth lot of customers there is usually a job for a senior instructor with an IDCS rating called "Mr. PADI (CMAS/SSI/SDI o whatever) Standards". The owner relies on this person to make sure that all DSDs and courses are done following the agency standards, that the paperwork is done properly and so on. This person can make another 300 Euros on top of Instructor salary. Most instructors aren't interested in getting an IDCS rating unless they want to become shop owners or eventually make CD!

Right now the real bucks are being hauled in by Tech Instructors and especially Tech Instructor Trainers, not only through courses that require usually one on one but also through equipment sales of tech computers (VR3), complete CCR units and so on.

BTW, it's almost impossible to live on 1200 Euros a month here, the market is dwindling becuse we are losing customers to more "diver friendly environments" such as Riviera Maya, Cancun, Thailand, Red Sea, government regulations get more stringent every day for dive centes to operate.....

 

[scubaskipper]

There is usually a base per hour and commission on sales or a percentage of the class price. This percentage is usually 40, for classes. The average open water instructor can expect about 24,000 a year, US. Base hourly wage should be in the 8.50 range. The more you know the more valuable you are. Computers skills and boat, compressor, dive gear repair are skills lacking in most applicants.
TOO many people are willing to work for free or for discounted gear and classes! You are subsidizing someones business with your time and money. In the process making it hard for those of us trying to make a living in the business to do so. It also keeps those people that probably shouldn't still be in business, in business that much longer to do the things that make the rest of us look bad to the consumer. Ever notice how many people here don't trust the local dive shop?