I am at a loss to understand the constant carping about the civil servants' pay increase. It seems to be borne out of nothing more than petulance, envy and/or plain stupidity.
One of the main problems in Hong Kong today is the collapse of consumer confidence, which has led to a decline in spending and a resulting increase in unemployment particularly in the service sector. The economy will only improve if this changes, which is why there has been talk of tax cuts, increased infrastructure spending and the rest. Cutting back the 'real' income of civil servants or any group would simply have the effect of reducing disposable income further and making the unemployment problem worse.
The SAR Government has enormous reserves and this is a time to use them to 'spend our way out of recession'. The idea of cutbacks in salaries to cope with the situation harks back to the policies adopted in Europe and the US at the onset of the 1930s Great Depression. It was a foolish, misguided policy then and remains so today. So, there is no economic argument for cutbacks in civil servants' pay. Let us then consider the other arguments.
Firms in the private sector are not offering huge bonuses to their employees this year and some are forcing redundancies. It may be true that civil servants enjoy some degree of job security, but what they don't enjoy are fat salaries and inflated bonuses at the expense of shareholders during good years.
Civil servant pay rises follow the rate of inflation so in real terms it is constant. In contrast, people working in the private sector do very well in a robust economic climate but less well in a recession. The problem is that some people seem to want it both ways.
J. KEYNES Chung Hom Kok
