Greetings everyone. I don't post comments too much here mostly because I am knee deep in my cake business but I do appreciate alot of the comments that I see. Please forgive me if I post incorrectly. I searched to see if there was any information on this and I could not find any.

I am opening up a small shop in the Tampa Bay area, in Florida and I wanted to see if anyone had any input on average wages for a cake decorator. I will be hiring a cake decorator with mid-level experience I would say. She has done some smaller cakes and can make figures. She also worked at the Publi bakery for a while. She has not covered a cake in fondant but her buttercream skills are pretty good. She will be very much like a direct assistant to me and learning everything.

Any ideas on an hourly rate for her? I have never worked in retail and don't have a good sense for pay rates for our type of work as an employee. Nothing specific but I wanted to know is it between $9-12, $13-16 or even higher. Just wasn't sure where to start.

Any input is helpful.

Thanks!

Cristina

Mid-level would be 2 times minimum wage for a three-month trial. Then you evaluate actual skill and upgrade if necessary. Do this with a contract.

You may want to get an account with PayScale to get access to a local salary survey, wages vary depending on location and cost of living. $10-15 is probably a good range, and don't forget to account for the fully loaded cost of the employee which is usually 150%-200% of the wage.

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Cake_Decorator/Hourly_Rate