Hong Kong's 155,000 civil servants will not get a pay rise, at
least for now.
The decision was announced Tuesday by Secretary for the Civil
Service Denise Yue Chung-yee following a four-year review of civil
servants' salary scales involving consultations with civil service
organizations.
The government concluded that changes to existing pay scales are
unnecessary, contrary to market expectations.
A government-commissioned survey conducted by a private consultancy
compared the pay levels of civil servants with those of 97
companies in the private sector. At April 1 last year, the salary
discrepancies between five different job levels were all within a 5
percent range.
Yue said the Executive Council had advised that the slight
difference in the pay scales did not warrant an adjustment.
"To finance salary adjustments, taxpayers would have had to fork
out an extra HK$180 million a year," Yue said, while noting that
civil servants had received three pay cuts since the
handover.
She denied that the survey was tailor-made for a purpose or a waste
of time, saying it would be inappropriate to adjust all salaries
based on a difference of just a few percentage points.
"I think we all agree that no survey could be 100 percent correct,
and factors like private companies' figures - that could be faulty
for whatever reason - could lead to the survey findings being
tilted one way or another," she said.
Yue stressed that the survey was based on a "balanced and fair
system" and was not aimed at benefiting or undermining civil
servants.
If the bureau had adjusted salaries strictly according to the
survey's findings, about 55,000 civil servants - from job levels
one and three, or the relatively lower ranks - would have received
pay cuts of between 3 and 5percent, while about 100,000 civil
servants - from job levels two, four and five and upwards - would
have received pay increases of between 1 and 5 percent.
Yue said similar surveys will be conducted in future at six-year
intervals.
She said civil service salaries, however, may be reviewed by the
end of the year, depending on the outcome of an ongoing related
survey which looks into the pay trends of private firms.
Any pay adjustments for the civil service require approval from the
Legislative Council's Finance Committee.
Leung Chau-ting, chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Civil
Servant Unions, complained that lower-ranked civil servants were
not sufficiently protected under the government's 5 percent
discrepancy system.
Under this arrangement, salary adjustments will not be made if the
difference between the pay scales in the public and private sectors
is found to be less than 5 percent.
He proposed adopting a flexible 5- to 10-percent range instead,
which would depend on the economic situation at the time of the
adjustments being made.
