Permanent Secretary for the Civil Service Clement Leung Cheuk-man said on Thursday that the survey was only one of six factors to be considered by the government’s key decision-making Executive Council before it decided on the final pay adjustments for public workers.

“The pay trend survey is not Exco’s only consideration,” he said.

“Other factors include the state of the economy, changes in the cost of living, the fiscal position of the government, and the wishes of the staff side, as well as civil service morale.

“Exco will balance all these factors and make a final decision on civil servants’ pay adjustments this year.”

Clement Leung says the pay trend survey is not the only consideration. Photo: Jelly Tse

The Pay Trend Survey Committee, chaired by Laurence Li Lu-jen, will validate the survey findings next week before submitting them to the government.

In 2023, Exco approved an increase of 2.87 per cent for the upper salary band and 4.65 per cent for middle- and lower-level staff, costing taxpayers HK$5.2 billion (US$663 million) for the year. Together with increases for graft-buster staff and subsidised organisations, the total will be HK$11.52 billion.

Despite the government facing a deficit of HK$101.6 billion for 2023-24, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po earlier rejected calls to cut civil service pay, saying he did not want to have any negative impact on the market.

Instead, Chan’s budget proposed zero growth in the civil service and a 1 per cent cut in recurrent government expenditure for three consecutive years, which altogether could save up to HK$11.7 billion in 2026-27.

According to the Civil Service Bureau, pay and other expenditure for civil servants reached HK$149.1 billion in 2022-23, or about 22 per cent of all government spending. The proportion went down by about 3.3 percentage points from that in 2021-22.

Темы и теги

Работа, Карьера, Учеба

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