Civil servants in the lower and middle salary bands in Hong Kong will get highest pay rise of 4.68%, equal to the net pay trend indicator (PTI) for the middle salary band. Whereas, the civil servants in the upper salary band and the directorate would receive a pay hike of 4.19%, equal to the net PTI for the upper salary band.
This announcement was made by the Civil Service Bureau (CSB), post receipt of the report by the Pay Trend Survey Committee last month.
The above decision was made by the Acting Chief Executive-in-Council (CE-in-Council) after considering all factors under the established mechanism, to include:
“The pay offers for civil servants in the upper and middle salary bands are the same as their net PTIs (i.e. 4.19 per cent and 4.68 per cent respectively). The pay offer for civil servants in the lower salary band follows the net PTI for the middle salary band due to the ‘bring-up’ arrangement,” a spokesman for the CSB said.
Under the ‘bring-up’ arrangement, if the net PTI of the lower salary band is lower than that of the middle salary band, its pay adjustment rate may be brought up to the net PTI for the middle salary band, subject to the decision of the CE-in-Council.
In accordance with the established practice, the pay offer for directorate civil servants follows that for civil servants in the upper salary band (i.e. 4.19 per cent),” the spokesman said.
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The rise will be effective retrospectively from April 1. Tsang Sum, chairman of the Federation of Civil Service Unions, said: “Morale is not particularly bad this year, but the rise would help make an improvement. Civil servants are under a lot of pressure. Working in the government is unlike working in private companies.”
The Government will submit the pay adjustment proposal to the Legislative Council Finance Committee for discussion and approval as soon as possible after the CE-in-Council receives the staff sides’ responses to the pay offers and makes a final decision on the 2016-17 civil service pay adjustment.
Last year civil servants received pay rises ranging from 3.96 per cent to 4.62 per cent. There are about 170,000 civil servants in Hong Kong. In 2014-2015, taxpayers paid HK$96.4 billion on staff-related expenditure on the civil service, up from HK$89.4 billion in 2013-2014.
News credits: scmp.com
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Image credit: chinadaily.com.cn
